Where to avoid August crowds?

My biggest concern with South Italy/Sicily in August would not be the crowds, but the heat.

I think you are just going to have to accept there will be crowds and plan on enjoying yourself anyway.

My vote would be for the Alps in August. Germany, Austria, Switzerland.

I second what Carol just said!

Southern Italy and Sicily are nice, but I agree, they’ll be hot — not my choice for August.

Not knowing you’re interests, I would pick Poland or some combination of Estonia, Latvia and/or Lithuania. These countries are less likely to be crowded and the weather ought to be nice in August. They’re also less expensive than some of the more popular countries.

I'd stay in the north that time of year due to potential heat. If you're going to big tourist areas unfortunately you probably cannot avoid crowds in August no matter where you go. You'll just have to plan ahead and make reservations for important things you definitely want to see. You might want to check out CWSocial's post about her visit to Warsaw/Vilinus/Riga/Talinn in early August.

In August, everyone hits the beach/coast areas. Those are the specific places that really get crushed, and that’s mostly European tourism. So, stay away from that, and avoid the big cities like Paris or Rome that just soak up that heat. If you want to see Italy, the Lakes and Dolomites region might be a great option. I’d look at other mountain areas like Austria, Bavaria and Switzerland as well. That’s probably the ideal time to visit.

Travel advice 2024, check where Taylor Swift concerts are, and avoid there.

The Westfjords of Iceland are amazing in August and the crowds are minimal up there, unlike the south coast that time of year. Although, crowds in Iceland are nothing like crowds in other places.

We are headed to Norway in August, purposely avoiding France, Italy etc.

Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland would be good choices for that time of year. You do not any to deal with the heat in Italy in summer months.
Or head to the southern hemisphere.

The simplest solution to avoid running into crowds usually expected in August is not to go those places swamped by international tourists.....can't help you on Italy.

Go to North Germany and eastern Germany to cities/towns such as Jena, Kiel, Flensburg , Weimar, Leipzig, Prenzlau, Wismar, Rostock, Magdeburg, etc and you will not be encountering such crowds

It will only be crazy busy in the real tourist honeypot locations. I always have to go away in August for the same reasons. We generally rent a large house with friends and to keep the costs down end up in some quieter, less popular spots. We stayed in a small town outside Granada that had a lot of interesting places to visit within a short drive. You could get to the coast, the mountains etc. We did go into Granada and it was fine for a day but incredibly hot.

If you go by where accommodation is cheaper then chances are you’ll end up far away from any crowds. A lot of small towns in Europe basically shut down for August so the experience was the opposite of crowded!

Paris, everyone in town will be vacationing elsewhere.

@Sam; there is a little sporting event called the Olympic Games going on in Paris in August this year. It will be anything but uncrowded… :-)

Well, maybe after August 11.

Being a huge fan of Spain, I’ll suggest visiting it. While much of the country is sweltering in August, I don’t let that stop me from visiting if that’s the only time I can go. You can avoid the crowds (not specific to Spain) by visiting places most tourists don’t go to. That means skipping the popular tourist destinations and probably having to rent a vehicle. Spain has a government run hotel chain, Paradors. It has hotels throughout the country with many in small towns to mid-sized cities. Many are in historic buildings. We use them as bases for taking day trips to smaller villages and sites tourists seldom visit.

Go East. Fewer tourists, lower prices, more discoveries. Heat? That's all relative. The hottest month in most of Europevis July. What's hot? People will tell you September is cooler. That's true, and it's cooler because temps go down each day in August. You said to travel mid August. That's good.

Where?
Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Albania, N. Macedonia.

Eef, Mr. É, and mkliz97 have my favorite ideas.

That being said, the best trip is when you go where you want to go. Except maybe Paris this summer or anywhere when Taylor Swift is there. Lol.

This had never been a consideration before, but in the last couple of years, areas affected by cruise boat crowds is something we’re now watching. For example, villages in Scandinavia, that suddenly have a ship for several hours with double the population of the actual town, means an overwhelmed situation. Even if buses or trains carry lots of the boat passengers to places away from the port (maybe a place you’d be), it’s worth looking Online for port cruise boat schedules, if you’re anywhere within an hour or two of a cruise boat port. The schedule will list what boat(s) will be there, the arrival and departure times, and the expected quantity of passengers that will be likely visiting on land between those times.

Good advice here, including that from Cyn above about doing some research on the potential impact of cruise ship crowds at your dream destination. That has become a regular part of my trip planning.

Personally, I try to altogether skip visiting places where there is a constant and heavy presence of large cruise ships (so increasingly, I'm going to places that are not overly famous and over-touristed), but that takes a lot of the world off your travel menu, so sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and try to work around them. In those cases when I do go where cruise ships loom large, I'll at least try to be smart about scheduling my time there - using the standard strategies like "get up super early and/or come home late, work hard to be out at the places I want to see long before the cruisers show up and after they've gone back to their ships." It can require some dedication (nobody I know is enthusiastic about waking up at oh-dark-thirty to go sightseeing when on vacation) but that's our world.

To the OP's question: another enthusiastic vote here for the Baltic countries - specifically Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. They're lovely, uncrowded, not expensive, with all the traditional things tourists dream about (culture, castles, fortresses, palaces, scenery, history, great food, etc.), surprisingly delightful. There are some cruise ships and day-trippers in Tallinn and Riga, but they're not in huge numbers like at popular Mediterranean cruise ports, and both cities are plenty big enough to absorb them without feeling overwhelmed. Not much danger of heat stroke there in August, either.

Having made the mistake of spending not just 17 days in Sicily but also nearly a week in Puglia during the summer of 2015, I am now a lot more careful about how I design my itineraries. These are places I've chosen to be during mid-summer and been very happy with the results:

• France: Normandy and Brittany
• Spain: the North Coast between the Basque Country and Galicia
• Scotland
• Norway (very expensive, though)
• Sweden
• Finland
• Estonia
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Northern Poland

That's not a complete list, just the places I've gone in the summer recently. Places farther south at significant altitude would also work.

I am not promising you zero days above 80F; that can happen, briefly, almost anywhere. The difference is that it would almost certainly only be a very brief heat wave in the places I've listed, whereas in Sicily/Puglia/southern Spain you could be staring 90-100F (or a lot higher) in the face day after day after day.