I spent one August afternoon in Barcelona hiding inside a supermarket. Not shopping. Hiding. The air outside had gone past “hot” into something that felt personally aggressive, and the frozen food aisle was the only place in a ten minute radius that felt survivable. I stood there next to the peas for about 20 mins, pretending to read labels in Spanish I couldn’t read, and thought: I have flown here, paid for this, and I am now sheltering next to peas.
That was the moment the coolcation idea stopped being a silly buzzword to me and started making complete sense.
Because here’s the bit nobody says out loud about summer holidays: a lot of us aren’t actually enjoying the heat. We’re enduring it. We book the beach because that’s what you do in July, then spend the trip planning our days around shade and air conditioning, and come home more tired than when we left. Meanwhile there are places where you can walk around at two in the afternoon without wanting to lie down.
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So what is a coolcation, exactly?
A coolcation is a holiday you plan around a comfortable temperature instead of a hot one. That's it. No gimmick. You pick somewhere that sits in the mid-teens to low twenties while southern Europe is cooking, and you spend your days actually outside doing things instead of rationing your energy between shady spots.
It's one of the bigger shifts in how people book summer trips, and it's picked up properly over the last few years as heatwaves have got longer and more punishing. Search interest in Nordic destinations for the June to August window has climbed hard, and Iceland in particular has gone from niche to properly mainstream as a summer choice rather than just a northern lights one.
Why people are quietly abandoning the Med in high summer
I want to be fair here, because I love the Mediterranean and I’m not about to pretend otherwise. Southern Italy in May is one of the best things going. But July and August have changed, and anyone who’s been recently knows it.
- You lose the middle of the day. Between roughly midday and five, outdoor sightseeing stops being fun and starts being a negotiation with yourself.
- Queues get worse in the heat, not better. Everyone’s trying to do the same indoor attractions at the same time for the same reason.
- Kids and older travellers struggle first, and they struggle hardest. Heat exhaustion doesn’t care about your itinerary.
- Accommodation with decent air conditioning has quietly become a premium feature you pay extra for.
- You come home needing a holiday from the holiday, which rather defeats the point.
Cool places invert all of that. Long daylight, comfortable air, and you can walk for six hours without thinking about it. In Iceland I’ve started a hike at nine in the evening because it was still bright and still pleasant. Try that in Athens.
How cool is cool? The temperature reality check
Numbers help more than adjectives here. These are typical peak summer daytime highs, so treat them as a guide rather than a promise. I’ve dropped Seville and Athens in at the bottom for contrast, because that contrast is the entire argument.
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| Destination | Summer high | What it feels like | Crowds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tórshavn, Faroe Islands | 12-14°C / 54-57°F | A brisk British spring day, with wind | Very low |
| Reykjavik, Iceland | 13-15°C / 55-59°F | Fleece weather, bright until midnight | High on the south coast |
| Tromsø, Norway | 15-17°C / 59-63°F | Mild, with actual midnight sun | Moderate |
| Scottish Highlands | 17-19°C / 63-66°F | Pleasant, occasionally midge infested | Busy on the NC500 |
| Anchorage, Alaska | 18-20°C / 64-68°F | Warm in sun, cold in shade | Moderate |
| Zermatt, Swiss Alps | 19-21°C / 66-70°F | Warm sun, cold once you gain height | High |
| Banff, Canadian Rockies | 21-23°C / 70-73°F | Warm days, properly cold nights | Very high |
| Helsinki, Finland | 21-23°C / 70-73°F | Proper summer, just a gentler version | Low to moderate |
| Ponta Delgada, Azores | 24-26°C / 75-79°F | Warm and humid, but never brutal | Moderate |
| Athens, Greece | 33-37°C / 91-99°F | Sightseeing becomes a morning-only sport | Extreme |
| Seville, Spain | 36-40°C / 97-104°F | Supermarket freezer aisle territory | High |
Where to Stay in Iceland
Iceland: the one I'd book first
I’ll declare my bias immediately. Iceland is my favourite country and it has been for years, so take my enthusiasm with whatever grain of salt you like. But it is also the most complete coolcation on the list, and the summer version is a totally different animal to the winter one.
Roads that are shut or sketchy in winter open up. The interior becomes reachable. Puffins arrive. And the light is ridiculous, with usable daylight running well past midnight, which changes how you plan a day. You stop cramming things in because you’ve stopped racing sunset.
- Drive the Ring Road properly rather than doing the Golden Circle day trip everyone does
- Hike in Landmannalaugar while the highland roads are actually open
- Swim outdoors in a geothermally heated local pool for the price of a coffee
- Head out on a whale watching boat from Húsavík in the north
- Skip the Blue Lagoon if it’s booked out and use Sky Lagoon or the Secret Lagoon instead
Where it stings is cost. Iceland is one of the pricier places you can go, and food in particular will make your eyes water. Self catering fixes most of that. Compare a few options on Booking.com and look for anything with a kitchen, because supermarket cooking will save you more here than in almost any other country.
Recommended Tours and Tickets in Iceland
Norway: fjords, and the Arctic bit above them
Norway splits neatly into two coolcations. There’s the fjord country around Bergen, Flåm and Geiranger, which is green, dramatic and reasonably easy to travel by train and ferry. Then there’s the Arctic north around Tromsø and Lofoten, which in summer gets the midnight sun and a strange, permanently golden light that makes everyone’s photos look better than they deserve.
The fjords are the easier first trip. Bergen to Flåm on the railway, boat through Nærøyfjord, back out again. It’s a well worn route because it works.
- Take the Flåm Railway, which is touristy and still worth it
- Hike to Pulpit Rock for the view over Lysefjord
- Kayak a fjord rather than just looking at one from a deck
- Go north to Lofoten for beaches that look Caribbean and feel Arctic
Cost is the honest catch. Norway is properly expensive, and a beer will upset you. Book a place with a kitchen, buy your alcohol at duty free on the way in, and remember that petrol station hot dogs are a legitimate national institution. Our Norway travel tips guide goes into the costs properly, and there’s a full breakdown of the best time to visit Norway if you’re weighing up months.
Where to Stay in Bergen
The Scottish Highlands: the cheap one
If the Nordic price tags have put you off, Scotland does most of the same job for a fraction of the cost. Cool air, huge empty landscapes, sea lochs, castles, and single track roads that make you feel like you’ve gone further than you have.
Glencoe in decent weather is as good as anywhere I’ve been in Europe, and I say that having spent a fair amount of time in the Alps. The Isle of Skye is rightly famous and correspondingly busy, so if you want space, aim for Assynt, Torridon or the far north west instead.
- Drive Glencoe slowly and stop more often than feels reasonable
- Take a boat on Loch Ness, mostly for the fun of it
- Walk a section of the West Highland Way rather than committing to the whole thing
- Ride the Jacobite steam train over the Glenfinnan Viaduct
- Base yourself in Ullapool or Gairloch if you want the coast without the queues
- Detour for a few of the fairytale castles in Scotland on the way north
Scotland is also the easiest of these to do on a budget. Hostels are good, plentiful and not just for twenty year olds, and you can find decent hostels in walking distance of trailheads for a fraction of what a hotel costs.
Where to Stay in Scotland
Gear we actually travel with
Passport holders, packing cubes, travel wallets. Stuff that earns its place in the bag.
Browse the shopFinland: lakes, saunas and doing nothing well
Finland is the coolcation for people who don’t actually want an adventure. It wants you to sit by a lake. That’s the whole pitch and it’s a strong one.
Helsinki is a really good small capital, walkable in a couple of days, with an island fortress you reach by ferry and a sauna culture that’s woven into normal life rather than sold as a spa treatment. Then you head inland to the lake district around Savonlinna and rent a cabin.
- Take the ferry to Suomenlinna and spend an afternoon wandering it
- Do a public sauna properly, including the cold water bit
- Rent a lakeside mökki cabin and do absolutely nothing for two days
- Go berry picking, which everybody there does and nobody there makes a fuss about
- Use our best time to visit Helsinki guide to line up the city half of the trip
Where to Stay in Finland
The Faroe Islands: the coldest option on this list
Eighteen islands in the North Atlantic, roughly halfway between Iceland and Norway, and the closest thing to properly cold weather you’ll find in a European summer. Peak summer highs sit around 13°C. You will wear a proper coat in July.
What you get for that is scenery that’s almost silly. Grass roofed villages, sea cliffs full of birds, waterfalls that fall straight off the edge into the ocean, and a sub sea tunnel network that means you can drive between most of the islands.
- Walk to Gásadalur to see Múlafossur waterfall dropping into the sea
- Take the boat to Mykines for the puffin colony
- Do the hike above Sørvágsvatn, the lake that appears to hover over the ocean
- Spend an evening in Tórshavn, which is small, colourful and surprisingly good for food
Fair warning: fog. The Faroes get a lot of it, and it can flatten a day’s plans. Build in spare time and treat any clear morning as a gift you should immediately act on.
Where to Stay in the Faroe Islands
The Swiss Alps: cool without giving up sunshine
Switzerland is my second favourite country after Iceland, and it solves a specific coolcation problem. Some people want cool air but still want sun and blue sky, and the Nordics can’t always promise that. The Alps can.
The trick is altitude. Stay in a mountain village rather than a lakeside city and you get warm afternoons, cold evenings, and the option to take a cable car up another thousand metres whenever you want to drop the temperature further.
- Base in Lauterbrunnen or Mürren for waterfalls, cliffs and easy access to higher ground
- Take a mountain railway up and walk down, which is easier on the knees than it sounds
- Swim in an Alpine lake, which is cold enough to count as an activity
- Use the trains, because the Swiss network is absurdly good and makes a car unnecessary
Switzerland is expensive in a different way to Norway. Transport and mountain excursions are where the money goes, so look at travel passes before you book individual tickets. If you want to lock in the big excursions in advance, browsing tours ahead of time usually beats sorting it at a ticket window on the day.
Where to Stay in Zermatt
The Canadian Rockies: big scenery, big crowds
Banff, Jasper, Lake Louise and the Icefields Parkway between them. Turquoise lakes, glaciers, elk wandering through towns like they own the place. It’s spectacular and it’s no secret, which is the trade off.
Summer days sit in the low twenties and nights drop properly cold, so the layering thing matters more here than people expect. Wildlife is a real feature rather than a brochure promise, and bear safety is something you take seriously rather than treat as a joke.
- Canoe on Lake Louise early, before the car park fills
- Drive the Icefields Parkway and give it a full day, not a transit
- Hike the Plain of Six Glaciers for the effort to payoff ratio
- Look for wildlife around Jasper, which is quieter than Banff
Distances are long and public transport is limited, so this one really does need a vehicle. Sorting car hire well in advance matters more here than almost anywhere else on this list, because summer rental supply in Calgary gets thin and prices climb steeply. All our Canada guides are here if you want to build it out.
Alaska: the wildlife one
Alaska is the most effort on this list and probably the biggest payoff if wildlife is what moves you. Brown bears fishing for salmon, humpbacks in the Inside Passage, glaciers you can kayak alongside, and summer temperatures that hover pleasantly around 18-20°C.
- Watch bears at Brooks Falls in Katmai, which is as good as wildlife viewing gets
- Cruise or ferry the Inside Passage rather than flying over it
- Take a flightseeing trip over Denali if the weather gives you a window
- Kayak among the icebergs in Glacier Bay
It’s a long way and it isn’t cheap, so this works best as a proper two week trip rather than a short break. Worth noting that a lot of Alaska activities are weather dependent and non refundable, which is the one place on this list where I’d say travel insurance earns its keep.
The Azores: the warm coolcation
Nine Portuguese islands out in the Atlantic, and the option for people who want cooler than the Med but don’t fancy a fleece in July. Summer highs sit in the mid twenties, tempered by ocean on all sides, so it’s warm without ever tipping into unbearable.
São Miguel is the easy first island. Crater lakes, hot springs, hydrangea lined roads, and whale watching that’s among the best in Europe.
- Look down over the Sete Cidades twin lakes on a clear morning
- Soak in the thermal pools at Furnas and eat cozido cooked in volcanic ground
- Go whale and dolphin watching from Ponta Delgada
- Climb Mount Pico on a neighbouring island if you want the challenge
It’s also the best value option here by a distance. You can do the Azores on a budget that would barely cover a long weekend in Norway. Worth pairing with a few days on the mainland too, and our Portugal guides cover that side.
Flip the hemisphere: Patagonia, Tasmania and New Zealand
The nuclear option. If it’s high summer where you live, it’s winter in the southern hemisphere, and you can go from 38°C to properly cold in one very long flight.
Patagonia gives you Torres del Paine, glaciers, penguin colonies and weather with genuine personality. Tasmania has ancient rainforest, empty beaches and wildlife you won’t see anywhere else. New Zealand’s South Island turns into a ski and adventure playground, and Queenstown in winter is a completely different experience to Queenstown in summer.
These aren’t long weekends. They’re the trip of the year. But if you’ve got the time and you’re properly done with the heat, nothing else on this list comes close for contrast.
What a coolcation actually costs
This is where people get caught out, because “cool” and “cheap” are not the same thing. The spread across these destinations is enormous. Below is a rough mid range daily budget per person, covering accommodation, food, local transport and one activity. Flights are extra.
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| Destination | £ / day | € / day | $ / day | Biggest cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Azores | £80-120 | €95-140 | $105-155 | Inter island flights |
| Patagonia | £100-150 | €115-175 | $130-190 | Getting there |
| Finland | £110-150 | €130-175 | $140-190 | Eating out |
| Scottish Highlands | £110-160 | €130-185 | $140-205 | Car hire in peak weeks |
| Canadian Rockies | £140-190 | €165-220 | $180-240 | Accommodation in Banff |
| Faroe Islands | £150-200 | €175-230 | $190-255 | Limited accommodation |
| Alaska | £150-210 | €175-245 | $190-270 | Tours and flightseeing |
| Norway | £160-220 | €185-255 | $205-280 | Food and drink |
| Iceland | £180-240 | €210-280 | $230-300 | Car hire and food |
| Swiss Alps | £180-250 | €210-290 | $230-320 | Mountain transport |
Prices are a guide and vary by route, date and demand. If you want to sanity check your own numbers before committing, our travel budget calculator will break it down properly.
Pick your coolcation by what you actually want
The mistake I see most often is people picking the destination that looks best on Instagram rather than the one that matches how they want to spend their days. Work backwards from that instead.
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| What you’re after | Go here | Why it works | Effort |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big scenery, minimal planning | Scottish Highlands | Short flight, no language barrier, cheap | Low |
| Actually cold in July | Faroe Islands or Iceland | Mid teens at best, coat weather guaranteed | Medium |
| Cool air but still sunny | Swiss Alps | Altitude does the work, blue skies stay | Medium |
| Rest and do nothing | Finland | Lake cabins, saunas, silence | Low |
| Wildlife above everything | Alaska | Bears, whales, glaciers, all in season | High |
| Mild air, warm-ish sea | Azores | Mid twenties, ocean breeze, low prices | Low |
| Proper winter in midsummer | Patagonia or New Zealand | Opposite season, maximum contrast | High |
| Fjords and long daylight | Norway | Midnight sun in the north, easy trains | Medium |
How to book one without overpaying
Coolcation destinations behave differently to Mediterranean ones when it comes to booking. There’s less supply, less competition, and prices climb rather than fall as you get closer. The late deal instinct that works for Spain will actively cost you money here.
- Book accommodation first, flights second. Beds are the bottleneck in the Faroes, Iceland and the Rockies, not seats.
- Filter for a kitchen wherever food costs are high. It’s the single biggest lever on your total spend.
- Look at shoulder weeks either side of peak. Late June and early September often get you the same weather for noticeably less.
- Book any activity with limited capacity early. Boat trips, glacier walks and bear viewing sell out long before hotels do.
- Don’t assume you need a tour for everything. In Scotland and Finland especially, doing it yourself is easy and much cheaper.
Who a coolcation isn't for
I’d rather be honest than sell you something that won’t suit you.
If your idea of a holiday is lying still on a beach for a week with a book, most of these places will disappoint you. They reward movement. You get out of them what you put in, and there isn’t much of a “do nothing by the pool” option outside Finland and the Azores.
If you’re travelling with small children, the constant layering and weather changes add friction that a resort simply doesn’t have. Doable, but more work.
And if your budget is fixed and tight, the Nordics will break it. Go to Scotland, the Azores or a high Alpine valley instead, and you’ll get most of the benefit without the shock.
For everyone else? Try it once. I went into my first proper cool summer trip expecting to miss the sun, and instead I came home realising I’d walked more, slept better and taken more photos than on any beach holiday I’d had in years. The heat wasn’t the holiday. It was the thing I’d been working around the whole time.
If you want a hand turning any of this into an actual plan, our travel itinerary generator will build you a day by day outline for any of these destinations, and the free travel starter kit has the checklists and packing templates to go with it.
FAQs
What is a coolcation?
A coolcation is a holiday chosen for its cool climate rather than its heat, usually taken during peak summer as an alternative to a Mediterranean beach trip. Most sit somewhere between 12°C and 22°C during the day.
Which European destination is coolest in summer?
The Faroe Islands and Iceland are the coolest mainstream options, with peak summer daytime highs of roughly 12-15°C. Northern Norway and the Scottish Highlands come next, sitting in the mid to high teens.
Are coolcations more expensive than a beach holiday?
Often yes, but not always. Iceland, Norway and Switzerland are among Europe’s priciest countries, while Scotland and the Azores can work out cheaper than a peak season package to Spain. The destination matters far more than the concept.
How far ahead should I book a coolcation?
Earlier than you would for southern Europe. Four to six months out is sensible for peak summer, mainly because accommodation supply in places like the Faroes, Iceland and the Canadian Rockies is tight.
Are coolcations good for families?
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