Ava Scott-Nadal

Crying out for that taste of summer freedom, heat on your face and more festivals than you can shake a stick out? You’ve got to book a holiday in July. And it doesn’t necessarily mean you need to burn up either: we’ve included destinations on our list that are great for ‘coolcations’, sunbathing and more.  Our list of the best places to visit in July touches every corner of the globe (the globe doesn’t have corners, for the record), from Montreal and Madagascar to the Netherlands and New Zealand. So bring out your swimsuits or shorts and get ready for the summer of a lifetime. Just make sure to book ahead: it goes without saying that July is a very, very busy month indeed. Happy travels! RECOMMENDED: 📍 The best cities in the world for 2025🏘️ The world’s coolest neighbourhoods📸 The world’s best cities for culture  At Time Out, all of our travel guides are written by local writers who know their cities inside out. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines and check out our latest travel guides written by local experts. This guide includes affiliate links, which have no influence on our editorial content. For more information, see our affiliate guidelines. 

 The perfect month for a holiday? Potentially. Balmy weather, less crowds, and not-yet-insane prices like you’ll get later on. We’ve compiled a collection of the best places to travel in June, although there is no such thing as a bad choice. How do the islands of Portugal, the seascape of Seattle and the beaches of Fiji sound? (You don’t need to answer that).  What is the cheapest city to visit in June? June is pretty much an ideal time for any kind of holiday, before peak summer holiday season but after the sea has warmed up a bit. Our number one cheapest holiday destination is, for the second year running, Tirana in Albania, where an Airbnb will cost you around £40 a night and you can get a pint for less than £3. You’ll find Albania and a whole lot more brilliant places to visit in our list below.  RECOMMENDED:🏖️ The best places to travel in July🌞 The best places to travel in August 🌍 The best things to do in the world🌆 The best cities in the world Ella Doyle is Time Out’s travel guides editor. At Time Out, all of our travel guides are written by local writers who know their cities inside out. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines. This guide includes affiliate links, which have no influence on our editorial content. For more information, see our affiliate guidelines. 

Looking to book an off-season holiday in 2025? You can’t really beat May. By this time, the weather is steadily improving, but the crowds still haven’t quite cottoned on, meaning travellers get to enjoy the fruits of the world without having to share them with every other living, breathing being. So where are the best places to travel in May? Everywhere on the planet, to be blunt. But some are particularly special in the spring weather – and we’ve put together a selection of the best of the best for your perusal. For sightseeing, nature and a whole lot more, here’s exactly where to book a holiday in May this year.  RECOMMENDED:🧳 Full guide to the best places to travel🏘️ The world's coolest neighbourhoods📸 The best cities for culture right now

A loveable spectacled bear known for his signature red hat, duffle coat and highly specific taste in sandwiches, Paddington is a national treasure and a movie star three times over. Now, thanks to a new permanent statue of the little Peruvian, he’s a work of art too. After a Paddington statue trail that took in every corner of the UK, from Cardiff to Liverpool to Reading, the public has voted on where the bear bust will have his permanent home. The people of ninety towns and cities applied for the honour, but coming out on top is… Norwich. A fine city for a fine bear.  Norwich, nicknamed the ‘City of Stories’, delivered entries that highlighted ‘a strong community spirit’, according to Paddington’s bosses at StudioCanal. Particularly adorable was a local primary school teacher who shared how Paddington inspires her pupils ‘to be brave, and explore not only new places but also new ideas and challenges, even if things go the wrong way’. No hard stares for those pupils.  The statue will be unveiled in the city just ahead of February’s school half-term.  ‘Norwich is a city bursting with adventurous places for a little bear to discover as well as some amazing local food and drink,’ says Stefan Gurney of the Norwich Business Improvement District. ‘We look forward to welcoming Paddington as one of our newest residents.’ The full list of locations of Paddington statue locations.Paddington 3 Filming locations: Where were the movies shot?

Have you heard of the chequered skipper butterfly? If you haven’t, now’s the time to get clued up. Here in the UK the chequered skipper is the insect of the moment, having been brought back to England after 40 years’ of extinction.  The chequered skipper butterfly used to be a common sight in the damp woods and fens of the East Midlands, particularly Rockingham Forest. In 1976 however, it was declared completely extinct in England, although a few survived in Scotland.  The wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation used a donor population from Belgium to start increasing the numbers in 2018 in Rockingham Forest. And now, after five years of hard work, the charity has declared success in bringing the species back from the brink. One of the main factors that enabled the charity to attempt the project was the help of landowners, including Forestry England and Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire Wildlife Trust. These groups worked with Butterfly Conservation to change how they manage the woodlands, with 23 hectares of vegetation used to create habitats that would allow the Chequered Skipper to expand and thrive.  Scientists also ran computer simulations to model the effect that climate change could have on Rockingham Forest, projecting their predictions to 2070. They found that rising temperatures and increased rainfall could actually prove beneficial to chequered skippers, suggesting long-term success for the project.  The next stage involves monitoring the new popula

We hate to be the bearers of bad news, but Walthamstow locals could have to face some chaotic morning commutes for a while.  On January 9, TfL shut down the escalators at the busy Blackhorse Road tube station on the Victoria line so that they can be replaced as part of essential maintenance works. Commuters will have to walk down to the platform via the station’s fixed staircase.  RECOMMENDEDLondon tube closures this weekend: the full list of travel disruption for January 17-19 The escalators will be taken out one at a time, with one always in place to work upwards, ensuring customers can be evacuated from the platforms in case of an emergency. TfL warns that the escalator closures could last until late June. This has received intense backlash, though. Some commuters argue that TfL should allow both escalators to be turned on during rush hour to avoid overcrowding and lengthy queues. A TfL spokesperson released a statement that encouraged customers to ‘travel at less busy times or to use [their] travel planning tools to take alternative routes.’ The closure of the downward escalator has resulted in lengthy queues that can snake onto the street during busy times. For commuters who are unable to use the 89 steps that take you down to the platform, it has left them with no access to the Victoria Line from this station for six months.  Those commuters have been advised to take buses such as the 230 or 120 to Walthamstow Central or Tottenham Hale to access step-free platforms. H

From the winter lights at Canary Wharf to the Mars installation at Old Royal Naval College, London’s post-Christmas winter lights displays are really putting on a show in 2025. Next up? The Battersea Power Station Light Festival, which will glow into action at the end of this month and feature four artworks not previously seen in London (or the wider UK). This will be the fifth time that the old, revamped power station has held its winter lights festival, and it’ll run from January 23 to February 23. Featured will be eight installations, and best of all – it’s all entirely free to visit.   Notable installations include a massive spider made up of 80 smaller spiders (yikes!), a mechanical cyborg and a gigantic, partially unravelled ball of yarn. There will also be a series of stalls open for food and drink.  It might be easy to forget that, not too long ago, Battersea Power Station was one of London’s great derelict structures. It fell into disuse in the 1980s but in 2012 it was bought by developers and in 2022 it opened as a complex with restaurants, bars and apartments. Find Time Out’s ultimate guide to Battersea Power Station here. You can find out more about Battersea Power Station’s 2025 Light Festival on the official website here. Get the latest and greatest from the Big Smoke – from news and reviews to events and trends. Just follow our Time Out London WhatsApp channel. Stay in the loop: sign up to our free Time Out London newsletter for the best of the city, straight

When you think of afternoon tea, you might think cucumber sandwiches, clotted cream and warm scones, twee napkins, pastel colours and dainty ceramics. Do you think of chemistry and astronomy? Probably not. But now the Science Museum is out to change that, launching its first ever official afternoon tea.  Created as a celebration of science and art, the Kensington museum’s afternoon tea features menus created by Benugo – a restaurant outlet likely familiar to museum-goers at the V&A and the Natural History Museum – and the tiered plates are designed by world-renowned architecture studio Zaha Hadid Architects. The family-friendly experience brings a bit more excitement to the conventional afternoon tea, introducing plenty of science-based fun. The kids menu has stuff like cupcakes with a ‘blood’ syringe and a test tube rack filled with various sweets like fizzy sherbet, chocolate popping candy, crushed coloured moon rocks and edible soil.  Because what kid doesn’t want to eat mud? There is also an opportunity for the little ones to create their own fizzy drink, using a mixture of acidic lemon juice and baking soda (which creates carbon dioxide bubbles, adding fizz to lemonade). Sounds messy, but better here than at home. Adults can enjoy a solar system-themed cupcake and your own petri dish jelly, with savoury options being run-of-the-mill classics like smoked salmon sandwiches and an egg and cress brioche roll. The Science Museum’s afternoon tea is priced at £32 for adults and

For plenty of Londoners, the words ‘O2 Arena’ are synonymous with massive live events. The multi-purpose indoor arena has been around for nearly two decades, but in 2024 it ascended to new, record-breaking heights. Last year the O2 saw a massive 12 percent rise in visitors, bringing the total number of people coming through its doors to 10 million. Part of a structure once known as the Millennium Dome (which Gen Z apparently discovered only last year), the O2 opened in its current form as a multi-purpose venue in 2007, and in 2018 the complex added Icon Outlet, a shopping centre home to over 60 designer brands. In 2024 the O2 welcomed ‘active gaming facility’ Activate and expanded its retail selection with 31,000 sq ft of new brands. All of which led to the O2 not just increasing footfall in 2024 but also boosting sales, which rose by 6 percent. Last year the O2 hosted gigs by the likes of Sam Fender, Janet Jackson, Ms. Lauryn Hill and The Fugees, McFly and Paul McCartney. Things could get even bigger for the O2 in 2025: some of the UK’s biggest music tours will stop by Greenwich over the next 12 months, including the likes of Tyler, the Creator, Busted vs McFly, Usher, Billie Eilish and Kylie Minogue.  Commenting on the O2’s record-breaking stats in 2024, the venue’s managing director of its entertainment district and outlet shopping Janine Constantin-Russell said: ‘We have consistently demonstrated just what a success story The O2 is, not only for tenants and operators, but