When to see it: seasonal travel guides

When and where to see cherry blossom, tulips, lavender, autumn leaves, the northern lights, safari wildlife and whales, and the best months for skiing, diving and hiking. Also a month-by-month festival calendar, Southeast Asia's rainy seasons and places that stay warm all year.

• Cherry blossom season: when and where to see it

  A cherry tree is in full bloom for about a week, and the date moves with each spring's weather. In Japan the bloom works its way north for almost four months, from Okinawa in January to Hokkaido in May, so missing it in Tokyo does not mean missing it altogether. Use the windows below to pick a region, then check that year's bloom forecast two or three weeks before you fly.

• Autumn leaves: when and where to see fall colors

  Fall color depends on cold nights. Once nights drop below about 10°C, maples and birches start to turn, so the color moves from high ground and the north down to the coasts and cities over six to eight weeks. In the Southern Hemisphere the same thing happens in April and May. Peak at any one spot lasts one to two weeks.

• Northern lights: when and where to see the aurora

  You need three things to see the aurora: a place under the auroral oval, a dark sky and a clear night. The oval is a ring around the magnetic pole, roughly between 65° and 70° north, which covers northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Alaska and northern Canada. The lights are there all year, but from May to August the far north has too much daylight to see them, so the season runs from late August or September to early April.

• Tulip season: when and where to see the tulip fields

  Tulips flower for about a month in any one place, from late March to early May in most of the Northern Hemisphere. The Netherlands is the center of it all, but Istanbul, the Pacific Northwest and Japan all have their own tulip seasons.

• Lavender season: when to see the lavender fields in bloom

  Lavender flowers in early summer and is cut soon after, so the window is shorter than most people expect: about four to six weeks in any one area, and much less once the harvest starts. Here is when each of the well-known lavender regions is in color.

• Ski season: when and where to ski, month by month

  In the Northern Hemisphere, most resorts open in December and close in April, with the most reliable snow from mid January to mid March. In the Southern Hemisphere the season is June to September. January powder and March sunshine are very different holidays, so it is worth deciding which one you want before picking dates.

• Diving seasons: where the water is good each month

  Somewhere in the world there is good diving every month. What changes is where. In the tropics, the monsoon decides the season: it brings wind, swell and rain to one coast while the other side of the same country stays calm. Many big animals also keep to a calendar of their own, so a trip to see mantas, whale sharks or humpbacks has to be timed more closely than a trip for reefs.

• Safari season: when to go to East and Southern Africa

  For most of Africa, the best game viewing is in the dry season. The grass is short, the trees lose their leaves, and the animals gather around rivers and waterholes, so they are easier to find. In Southern Africa that means the winter months from May to October. East Africa has two dry spells, and the Great Migration adds its own calendar on top.

• Whale watching: where to see whales, month by month

  Many large whales migrate: they feed in cold polar water in summer and swim to warm, shallow water in winter to give birth. That gives most whale-watching places a short, reliable season, and it means the Northern and Southern Hemispheres take turns. If you time it right, seeing whales on a good trip is close to certain.

• Hiking seasons: when to walk the world's great trails

  The best time for a trek depends on two things: when the high passes are free of snow, and when the rain stays away. In the Alps that leaves a short summer window; in the Himalaya it leaves two seasons, either side of the monsoon; in Patagonia and New Zealand it runs through the southern summer, from November to March. Get the month wrong and a famous trail can be closed, under cloud, or simply too hot.

• Festival calendar: the world's great festivals, month by month

  A festival can be the best reason to pick a month, or a reason to avoid one if you would rather have a quiet city. Some fall on fixed dates. Others follow the lunar calendar or Easter and move by a few weeks from year to year, so check the exact dates for the year you travel. Rooms in festival towns go early; book as soon as your dates are set.

• Southeast Asia rainy season by month
• Places that are warm all year