Autumn is officially the new high season if the editors at Condé Nast Traveller are anything to go by. Their October round-up reads less like a wind-down and more like a packed departure board, with trips booked across three continents and a fair few winter wardrobes dusted off early.
Social media manager Lucy Bruton is starting the month in Uganda, ticking off a long-held dream with game drives, dhow river cruises and treks to see chimps and gorillas. She pairs the safari packing list with an equally atmospheric next stop: Finnish Lapland, where the new glass-roofed SkyView Igloos offer a bed with a built-in aurora forecast — no standing in minus-twenty darkness waiting for the lights to show.
Back in the UK, the countryside is doing its bit. Great Decoy, a newly opened stay in Hampshire, is being pitched as the ideal cosy weekend: open fires, local ales and autumn leaves. Closer to central London, new openings worth knowing about include Nettle, a rooftop in Covent Garden serving a frequently changing menu (the hake croquettes with dill and pickled cucumber are the dish to hunt), the Parakeet in Kentish Town — a traditional-looking pub with notably serious food — plus Nakimushi for cosy Japanese, Martino's near Sloane Square and Cassette for a comté and tarragon quiche.
Newsletter producer Milan Sehmbi is heading to Calgary for a family week before a first trip to Switzerland, while commerce producer Tamara Southward has just come back from Venice's Hotel Cipriani, the hotel famous for its celebrity clientele, which has launched a new Dior spa. Her month also includes a session in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber at Tramp Health — yes, that Tramp, the Mayfair institution that once ran a nightclub — and a return to Paris, plus a stop at Los Angeles' Sunset Tower Hotel, where the bedtime chocolate chip cookie reportedly justifies the booking on its own.
The takeaway for anyone planning a shoulder-season break: October is not a gap between holidays, it's arguably the best of them. Gorilla trekking and chimp tracking in Uganda are in a dry, trekking-friendly window; Lapland's igloo season is just opening ahead of the deep winter; and city breaks in Venice, Paris, New York and Canada come with thinner crowds and proper atmosphere. It's also the month for snug hotel openings and pub-hopping weather, which is its own kind of draw.
Practical notes worth borrowing from the editors themselves: pack layers you can mix across climates (a fleece and thermals do double duty in Calgary and the Alps), bring closed, blister-proof footwear for safari terrain, and book high-demand experiences — gorilla permits in Uganda, Northern Lights igloos in Lapland, sought-after London tables — well ahead. If winter sun-and-snow whiplash sounds like too much, pick one end of the spectrum; if it sounds like fun, the editors clearly think it is. A version of this round-up appears in Condé Nast Traveller UK.
