Best places to travel in spring

First on our list is THE spring event – hana­mi. Oth­er­wise known as the ​‘cher­ry blos­som fes­ti­val’, this nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­non occurs in Japan, and is when locals cel­e­brate nature. This takes place across Japan, but is espe­cial­ly amaz­ing in the numer­ous gar­dens and palaces that can be found in the city of Kyoto. When vis­it­ing at this time of year, you’ll see locals gath­er­ing under bloom­ing cher­ry blos­soms for food, drink, songs and com­pan­ion­ship — and sim­ply to admire the beau­ty of saku­ra (the cher­ry blossoms).

With the bit­ter cold of the win­ter gone for anoth­er year, New York soft­ens and the blan­ket of snow (and treach­er­ous ice) is replaced by blos­som­ing flow­ers in Cen­tral Park. A city known for its weath­er extremes, spring in New York is the ide­al time to wan­der the streets and make the most of the muse­ums, gal­leries and sights on offer. We love New York at any time of the year, but these activ­i­ties become even more spe­cial when you’re not melt­ing from the heat of sum­mer or turn­ing into a human pop­si­cle dur­ing the win­ter months!

Start the day by vis­it­ing the MET Muse­um, fol­lowed by the Amer­i­can Muse­um of Nat­ur­al His­to­ry and then the Muse­um of Mod­ern Art (MoMA). (Bonus tip: the MoMA is free to local res­i­dents on the first Fri­day night of the month from 4pm ​’til clos­ing at 8pm, so con­sid­er ask­ing your home swap part­ners if they’ll reserve you a cou­ple of tickets.)

Already an afford­able city in com­par­i­son to many of its oth­er Euro­pean coun­ter­parts, Lis­bon is the hid­den gem of Euro­pean city breaks. Offer­ing cul­ture by the buck­et-load, you’ll find that many attrac­tions and din­ing-out options are very pock­et-friend­ly (and com­bine this with a home swap, and it real­ly is an afford­able vaca­tion option!) The old cen­tre is perched atop sev­en hills, with alley­ways that wind between colour­ful, cen­turies-old build­ings, plus restau­rants, local gal­leries and boutiques.

Known for its chilled-out pace of life and relaxed atmos­phere, our top rec­om­men­da­tion for Lis­bon would be to find a great café such as Pasteis de Belem, where you can try a Pasteis de Nata (one of the best egg cus­tard tarts you’ll ever taste) and watch the city go by. If you do have time, a day trip to Sin­tra is an absolute must. Around 1‑hour out­side of Lis­bon, this moun­tain­ous, forest­ed-coat­ed ter­rain is stud­ded with fairy­tale-inspired pas­tel-coloured vil­las and palaces.

Avoid­ing the trop­i­cal rain­storms of the sum­mer and the sur­pris­ing­ly cool win­ter, spring is the ide­al time to vis­it Viet­nam. A thin, long coun­try vary­ing dras­ti­cal­ly in ter­rain, tem­per­a­ture and cul­ture from north to south, our rec­om­men­da­tion would be to set­tle some­where in the mid­dle, like the delight­ful town of Hoi An.

Divid­ed by a series of canals, this well-pre­served town was a for­mer trad­ing port sup­ply­ing goods to coun­tries such as Japan, Chi­na, India, The Nether­lands and France. The result­ing influ­ence is clear to see in the city’s melt­ing pot of archi­tec­ture, with hints of French colo­nial build­ings and icon­ic Chi­nese lanterns dot­ted around every street and alley­way. Whilst here, make sure you explore the town by bicy­cle, and don’t for­get to vis­it the sur­round­ing trad­ing towns such as the pot­tery vil­lage of Thanh Ha and the fish­ing vil­lage of Thanh Nam for a unique insight into local life.

Now you prob­a­bly won’t be trav­el­ling to the Cor­nish coast for some spring­time heat (although Corn­wall is notice­ably ahead of its oth­er British coun­ter­parts in shak­ing off its win­ter coat), but this delight­ful coast­line in the south west of Eng­land has a lot to offer at this time of year.

For the brave amongst us, surf­ing is a must, with some of the best beach­es in the UK. For the less adven­tur­ous there’s also a heap of great walk­ing and ram­bling routes on offer for every kind of abil­i­ty. What­ev­er your pref­er­ence for out­door activ­i­ties, one option that should­n’t be missed is a vis­it to the Eden Project. Two giant domes are home to thou­sands of exot­ic plant species, with each area hav­ing it’s own unique bio­me. Don’t leave with­out find­ing Eve, a liv­ing sculp­ture that has been made from local Cor­nish clay as well as oth­er local flora.