Every spring the same question fills our inbox: where would we actually go this summer, spending our own money rather than a tourist board’s? For 2026 the honest answer leans away from the beach-resort reflex. Two of our five picks are best experienced from a city, one involves whales, and every one is anchored by a hotel we have inspected and scored ourselves.
How we chose
Three filters produced this list. The destination has to be genuinely better in summer than at other times of year, not merely open; the flagship hotel has to have passed our own 200-point inspection rather than a press trip; and there has to be a reason to go in 2026 specifically, whether that is an event, a season or a price window that will not repeat. Plenty of famous names failed the first test alone. The Mediterranean’s marquee islands are at their worst in August, and we would rather send you somewhere at its best.
1. Venice, in the Biennale’s quiet hours
Yes, in summer, with a strategy. The 2026 Art Biennale fills the Arsenale and Giardini until late November, and the city’s rhythm rewards anyone willing to work mornings and evenings while the day-trippers own the middle. Stay on the San Polo bank at Aman Venice, where two private gardens and a Grand Canal landing stage turn the world’s most visited city into something close to a private house. Read our 48-hour plan before you book anything.
2. Zurich and the high Alps
Switzerland in July is the anti-heatwave: lake swims at lunchtime, 4,000-metre views by cable car in the afternoon, dinner outside until ten. Zurich makes the perfect base because you get a proper city between mountain days, and The Dolder Grand gives you both at once, sitting on its forested ridge with a 4,000 square metre spa for the recovery day. The Alps’ summer season keeps getting longer and the crowds still have not worked it out.
3. Jasper, Canadian Rockies
Jasper is rebuilding after the 2024 wildfire, and going back is both the best value and, frankly, the right thing to do: the national park’s lakes, glaciers and dark-sky reserve are untouched, the town wants visitors, and the summer light lasts until 11pm. Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge, the great cabin resort on Lac Beauvert, is the classic base for canoe mornings and elk sightings from the breakfast table.
4. Ile Sainte-Marie, Madagascar
From July to September, humpback whales migrate through the channel off Madagascar’s Ile Sainte-Marie in one of the great wildlife spectacles nobody talks about. The island itself is what the Indian Ocean looked like before the big resorts arrived. Voaara, with just 14 keys on its own beach, puts the whales more or less in front of your villa and the entire island within a bicycle ride.
5. Central Vietnam’s coast
Hoi An’s dry season runs through the summer, which means lantern-lit old-town evenings, tailors working overnight, and eight kilometres of An Bang beach between you and the South China Sea. Four Seasons The Nam Hai remains the definitive stay on this coast, and Da Nang’s flight connections have quietly become excellent, making this the easiest serious beach trip in Asia right now.
The booking note
Summer 2026 inventory is moving earlier than usual, particularly in the Alps and the Rockies, where the best rooms for July were already thinning in March. School holiday patterns have shifted demand into late June, so travelling in the first half of the month buys noticeably better rates and quieter pools for the same weather. If one of these five is calling, hold a flexible rate now and argue with yourself later; the reverse order rarely works. And wherever you land, our standing rule applies: mornings belong to the destination, afternoons to the pool, and anything worth queueing for is worth waking up for instead.
