Travel calendar: our tips for where to go in June

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Travel calendar: our tips for where to go in June

This month is for Kerouac-style adventures in Colorado, retiring to shoulder-season Greece and getting your live-music fix at festivals…

Martin Dickie

BY Martin Dickie5 January 2019

Summer in the northern hemisphere is still fresh and new, while winter in the south brings its own opportunities for far-flung breaks or close-to-home adventures. The schools, too, are yet to empty, meaning beaches from Turkey to the Caribbean are reaching their peak heat while remaining relatively quiet.

GO WITH THE FLOW

Your next ‘crazy venture beneath the skies’, as Jack Kerouac put it, could be in the American midwest where, in June, Colorado’s skies don’t get much bigger. Start on (Kerouac fave) Larimer Street in Denver – these days home to microbreweries and boutiques – before packing a map and your hiking boots for forays into the Great Outdoors. Take on Aspen’s dizzying rush Hunter S Thompson-style before crossing the summer-only Kebler Pass for rafting, riding, hiking and biking adventures in Crested Butte. Aim to end road trips in San Francisco, too, for views of the Golden Gate Bridge rising into blue skies through a bed of fog.

ESCAPE THE CROWDS

Greece is a long-season destination, of course, but June gives you the best of its warm, dry heat, without the onset of selfie-sabotaging crowds. Beach parties on Mykonos get underway towards the end of the month, or there’s Crete and Halkidiki before the school-holiday crowds. Folegandros, meanwhile, is our pick for an unspoiled Aegean escape – a petite isle scattered with mountain villages and impressive white-washed churches.

WHAT’S HAPPENING?

Music festivals dominate the June calendar: the Montreux Jazz festival in Geneva being the chicest; Barcelona’s electronic-oriented Sonar being the coolest; and Somerset’s legendary Glastonbury being the biggest (and most bonkers).

Miami Beach, Florida

BOOK NOW FOR…

Savvy hotel lovers know that, come the end of the northern hemisphere’s summer, you’ll probably be craving a final hit of winter-repelling warmth. So, make sure that by the end of June you’ve booked yourself a trip for late-summer sunshine (because there are others who’ll undoubtedly have the same idea at the best hotels). Our pick for sun-chasers in September/October? Bodrum, Puglia and Miami.

For more travel inspiration, explore where to go in July