Best places to travel in January (aka the best time to travel)

January is one of the best months to visit Thailand, full stop. The rainy season is over, temperatures are warm without being brutal, and the country is in full swing. In Bangkok, the streets are buzzing. In the islands, the water is clear and the beaches are at their best. In Chiang Mai, the air is cool enough to actually enjoy being outside.

Thailand in January also means you’re visiting during peak season for a reason—the conditions are excellent—but because you’re not going during a Western holiday week, you’re not fighting the same crowds you’d encounter in late December.

The food alone is worth the trip. Street markets, night bazaars, fresh coconut everything. Thailand has a way of making you feel like every meal is the best meal you’ve ever had, and January is a great time to eat your way through it without sweating through your shirt.

EF Ultimate Break’s Thailand Getaway covers Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and the islands over 11 days, with guided experiences, a Tour Director who knows the country inside and out, and enough free time to actually wander. If you want to go deeper, Highlights of Southeast Asia extends the trip into Cambodia and Vietnam— a combination that makes January feel like the best decision you’ve made in a while.

Egypt in January is a different experience than Egypt in July. The summer heat, which can push well past 100°F in places like Luxor and Aswan, is replaced by mild, dry days that are comfortable for the kind of walking and exploring that Egypt demands. You’re standing in front of the Pyramids of Giza in 65-degree weather instead of melting. It’s a meaningful difference.

January is also one of the quieter months for tourism in Egypt, which means you’re not sharing the Valley of the Kings with a thousand other people. The temples feel more like temples and less like theme parks. The Nile cruise is peaceful in a way that’s hard to replicate in peak season.

And the sites themselves—the Pyramids, the Sphinx, Karnak Temple, the Egyptian Museum, the tomb of King Tut—are the kind of places that make you realize how small and recent most of the world is by comparison. Egypt has 5,000 years of history stacked on top of itself, and January is one of the best times to actually absorb it.

EF Ultimate Break’s Egypt: Cruise the Nile is a 10-day trip that combines Cairo and the Pyramids with three nights on a Nile River cruise ship, stopping at ancient temples along the way. The optional hot-air balloon ride over Luxor at sunrise is one of those experiences that earns its own story. If you want to combine Egypt with more of the region, Ancient Wonders: Cairo, Athens & Rome and Egypt & Jordan: Pyramids to Petra are both worth a look.

If you’re going to Iceland in January, you know what you’re there for. The northern lights are most visible from late August through April, and January sits right in the middle of the prime window. Long nights, dark skies, and the kind of natural phenomenon that makes you feel like you’ve been let in on something the rest of the world doesn’t know about.

But Iceland in January isn’t just aurora hunting. The Golden Circle—Þingvellir National Park, the Geysir geothermal area, Gullfoss waterfall—is dramatic in winter in a way it simply isn’t in summer. Black sand beaches with crashing waves. Frozen waterfalls. Geothermal pools that you can actually soak in while snow falls around you. Iceland in January is a full sensory experience, and it’s one of the few places where the “off-season” is actually the best season.

EF Ultimate Break’s Iceland Winter Escape is built specifically for this: six days designed around northern lights viewing, the Golden Circle, the Secret Lagoon geothermal pool, and South Coast exploration. Your Tour Director monitors aurora forecasts in real time to maximize your chances of seeing the lights. It’s the kind of trip that requires exactly zero prior experience with cold-weather travel to pull off.

January is technically the start of Peru’s rainy season, which sounds like a reason not to go—but it’s actually one of the best-kept secrets in travel. The rain tends to come in short afternoon bursts rather than all-day downpours. The landscape is lush and green in a way it isn’t during the dry season. And most importantly: the crowds at Machu Picchu are significantly smaller.

Machu Picchu in January is a different experience than in July or August, when the site is at peak capacity. You’re still seeing one of the most remarkable places on earth—the 15th-century Inca citadel perched above the Sacred Valley, surrounded by cloud forest and mountain peaks—but you’re seeing it with more space to actually take it in.

Lima and Cusco are worth time on their own. Lima’s food scene is one of the best in South America. Cusco’s colonial architecture sits on top of Inca stonework, making the whole city feel like a living history lesson. And the Sacred Valley, between Cusco and Machu Picchu, is full of Inca ruins, local markets, and landscapes that don’t require any particular weather to be extraordinary.

EF Ultimate Break’s Peru & Machu Picchu Adventure covers Lima, Cusco, the Sacred Valley, and Machu Picchu over 10 days—with a Tour Director, guided experiences, and the kind of local knowledge that makes the difference between seeing a place and actually understanding it.