For some wealthy travelers, fall is the new summer

• Some luxury travel agencies say more travelers are vacationing in the fall instead of summer.
• One company now sees more bookings for September than June, July, and August.
• Travelers can dodge Europe's peak summer crowds and costs by going during shoulder season.

Planning where to go for your next summer Euro trip?

No need to stop by Portugal to try some sardines. Just head to cities like Rome and Athens to experience the next best option — being packed against other tourists like tinned fish.

Summer is historically the most popular time to travel. The weather is warm, school is out, serotonin levels are high, and vacation getaways are jam-packed. So much so that many travelers are now opting instead for a fall respite.

A growing number of vacationers have been replacing their summer vacations with ones during shoulder season (the time between high and low travel, such as autumn) — to the extent that luxury travel agency and consortia Virtuoso saw a 23% increase in bookings for fall 2024 compared to the year prior, Misty Belles, its vice president of global public relations, told BI.

Forget asking where your friends "summer" — now, it's all about where you autumn.

Fall vacations are becoming trendy

Autumn travel often goes hand-in-hand with leaf-peeping excursions. (That's still true — AirDNA, which tracks vacation rental listings on platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo, told BI that demand in October for the popular fall foliage hot spots of rural New York and the coast of Maine is up 19.7% from 2023.)

Many of these offseason vacationers are also seeking out classic overseas summer destinations like Europe.

Travel-booking company Hopper told BI that in 2023, 23% of European vacations reserved on the platform were for September and October of that year, up 5% from 2019.

Jackie Roth — a travel manager for Scott Dunn Private, the invite-only subsidiary of travel agency Scott Dunn — told BI that all its clients have been requesting fall travel. And likely not for some quick, dirt-cheap getaways — Scott Dunn Private's members must spend a minimum of $100,000 on travel annually.

The ultra-luxury team now fields more requests for vacations in September than in the traditional ultra-peak travel months of June, July, and August, often to European countries like Italy, France, and the United Kingdom, Roth said.

Italy, in particular, reported a 15.5% increase in foreign visitors between September and November 2023 compared to the previous year.

"People are willing to trade going to the beach for their umbrella so they can experience some of the popular destinations without quite the crowds," Julie Durso, a Scott Dunn Private travel manager, told BI, adding that the team works with several Tuscany properties that are now trying to stay open through November.

Why they're falling for fall

Autumn can be a great time to travel if you're looking to avoid peak-season crowds and costs. Most children are back in school. And Airbnb said its vacation rentals are generally the cheapest from September through November.

According to data from travel booking platform Kayak, the average nightly cost of three- and four-star hotels in Italy dropped 3% from the summer to fall of 2024. In Cagliari, Sardinia, the dip was closer to 22%.

It's easier for families who aren't beholden to a school calendar to globetrot during the week. Or, they could just skip class.

Kelly Grumbach, senior vice president of travel for concierge service Quintessentially, told BI that about 20% to 25% of the company's clients pull their children out of school for a weeklong shoulder-season vacation to avoid being "surrounded by American tourists" and "ripped off" by peak-season rates.

She said the company books most of these trips to European destinations like the Amalfi Coast and Sicily, adding that trips to the latter at the end of September and early October are a "fraction" of July and August's prices.

Plus, the weather is generally still great.

"Savvy travelers have realized that they can go to Capri, Italy, or the south of France in September and October and experience warmer waters, fewer crowds, and lower prices," Melissa Biggs Bradley, CEO of luxury travel agency Indagare, told BI in an email. "Our clients are being more selective about when to splurge on a special property and when to save." (The company has two membership options, the priciest at $2,850 a year.)

Melissa Krueger, CEO of luxury travel wholesaler Classic Vacations, is especially partial to October, calling it the "best time to travel worldwide." In late September, 20% of Classic Vacations' bookings were for the final three months of the year, 7% for October specifically.

Italy's Amalfi Coast has seen a late-season boost

According to Belles, of Virtuoso, some seasonal resorts have been extending their operating months to accommodate the growing number of late-season visitors.

Estelle Vassallo, the general manager of Anantara Convento di Amalfi Grand Hotel, told BI that occupancy levels along the region have seen a "significant shift" in recent years, dipping in July and August while increasing in the traditional offseason months of May, June, September, and October.

Her hotel has seen a "consistent" number of travelers throughout the year, which she expects will continue into November.

Many hotels in the region close for winter breaks from November to March. Anantara Convento di Amalfi has instead opted to break from mid-January to mid-March.

In 2024, the nightly hotel costs along this slice of coastal Italian paradise dipped as much as 23% from summer to fall, according to Kayak — except for Positano, where hotel costs have increased "slightly."

Before the rise of shoulder-season vacations, travelers wanted to chase the best weather, Grumbach said.

Now, she's hearing more say: "I am fine with clouds and maybe a little rain. I just want to be able to eat at this restaurant and not have to get on a waitlist or go to this nice hotel but not have to pay double the amount."

"We have some of the wealthiest clients in the world, and they're still like, 'I don't want to be ripped off," she added.