Best Countries to Visit in April

Early April is when the cherry blossom front reaches Tokyo and Kyoto, and the country turns out to sit under the trees with food and family. Hanami in the city parks, the temple grounds in Kyoto, the deer at Nara, all of it at its best for about ten days. Packages average around Rs 1,37,000 per person. Be clear that this is peak season, not a quiet one: flights and hotels cost more and sell out months ahead, and bloom dates shift by a week either way each year.

Keukenhof is at its fullest around the middle of April, seven million bulbs in one garden at Lisse, with the commercial tulip fields running in stripes of colour on the drive out. Amsterdam is mild and green, and if your dates stretch to the 27th, King's Day turns the whole city orange with street stalls and boats on the canals. Cycle the bulb region one day, do the museums the next.

Songkran runs from 13 to 15 April, and it is the reason to pick Thailand this month over any other. Thai New Year is marked with water, poured gently over the hands of elders in the morning and thrown with far less restraint on the streets of Chiang Mai and Bangkok by afternoon. Go for the festival rather than the weather: this is the hottest week of the year and the islands are turning wet. Packages average around Rs 35,000 per person.

Istanbul plants tulips across its parks every April, a reminder that the flower reached Holland from here in the first place. Spring is the sensible window for Turkey: warm enough for the dawn balloon flights over Cappadocia, cool enough to walk Istanbul all day, and a long way from the July and August heat that makes the interior hard work. Antalya's beaches are open and still quiet.

The Himalayan air clears in spring, and April gives you the mountain views that winter haze and summer cloud both take away. Rhododendron and jacaranda are out along the valley roads between Paro, Thimphu and Punakha. This is tshechu season, with masked cham dances at the dzongs and the giant thongdrel scroll unfurled before dawn, so check which festival falls in your dates. Book early, it is the busy season. Packages average around Rs 37,000 per person.

Rhododendron, Nepal's national flower, covers the hill trails in red and pink through April, and the peaks stay sharp before the pre-monsoon haze settles in. This is the busiest trekking month of the year on the Annapurna and Everest routes, so book teahouses ahead. Nepali New Year falls mid-month and is best seen at Bhaktapur, where the Bisket Jatra chariots are hauled through the old streets. Packages average around Rs 22,000 per person.

Athens sits around seventeen degrees in April and the southern islands are warmer, which is the temperature you want for the Acropolis and for the Santorini cliff path without a queue on it. The islands are opening up rather than filling up. Greek Orthodox Easter usually falls this month and is worth planning around, for the midnight candles and the lamb the next day.

Twenty to thirty-two degrees is about as kind as Egypt gets, and April is the last month before Luxor and Aswan turn punishing. Do the Giza pyramids early in the morning, take the Nile cruise between Luxor and Aswan, and give a full day to Abu Simbel. Sham el-Nessim, on the Monday after Coptic Easter, sends every Egyptian family outdoors with picnics, coloured eggs and salted fish.

Jordan is small enough to cover properly in a week, and April is the month to do it, before Wadi Rum climbs towards thirty-five degrees in high summer. Walk the Siq at Petra early, in shade, until the Treasury opens up in front of you. Then take a 4x4 across the red sand and sleep in a Bedouin camp. Float in the Dead Sea on the drive back to Amman.

April falls in the gap between the northern winter drizzle and the summer rains, so Hanoi is dry, Halong Bay is clear rather than misty, and Hoi An is warm without being heavy. This is the month to do Vietnam end to end instead of picking one region. Add Ninh Binh for the limestone hills and boat rides, and give Hue a couple of days for the food. Packages average around Rs 68,000 per person. Check current e-visa rules before booking.

Aluth Awurudda, the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, falls on 13 or 14 April and the island stops for it. Families light the hearth at an auspicious hour, kiribath and kavum come out, and shops close for close to a week, so plan around the dates rather than into them. The dry weather sits on the west and south coasts this month, which means Galle and Bentota over Trincomalee. Packages average around Rs 32,000 per person.

Rome, Florence and Venice in April mean shorter queues than you will see at any point in summer, and a comfortable nineteen degrees for walking all day. Easter and Holy Week fill the churches, with the Vatican at the centre of it and Florence setting off a cartload of fireworks outside the Duomo on Easter morning. Vinitaly brings the wine trade to Verona mid-month.

Seville is the reason to come in April. Semana Santa fills the streets with processions, and roughly two weeks later the Feria de Abril puts up a thousand marquee tents where people dance sevillanas till dawn. Andalusia is warm without the summer glare, Madrid and Barcelona are good for walking, and airfares have not yet reached their July level. The Feria moves with Easter, so confirm the dates before booking.

Spring is the short, comfortable window in Uzbekistan, between a hard winter and a summer that pushes past forty degrees, and April is the pick of it. Stand in the Registan at Samarkand with its three tiled madrasas facing one another, take the fast train on to Bukhara, and walk the walled old town at Khiva. Flights from Delhi are short and Indian food is easy to find in Tashkent.

Georgia in April is green, inexpensive and largely free of tour groups. Tbilisi's sulphur baths and carved wooden balconies suit this weather, and the Kakheti wine roads are coming back to life after winter. Kazbegi still has snow on the high peaks, which makes it a fine day trip rather than a trek. Georgian food, the khinkali dumplings and cheese-filled khachapuri, lands better with Indian tastes than most of Europe.

Baku sits at nine to sixteen degrees in April, jacket weather, and about right for the Old City walls, the Flame Towers and Zaha Hadid's Heydar Aliyev Centre. Drive out to the mud volcanoes on the Absheron peninsula, or north to Sheki for the stained-glass palace and the walnut sweets. Expect a handful of rainy days. Short direct flights from Indian metros are what make a four-night Baku trip work.

Eighteen to twenty-five degrees, long sunny days, and Algarve beaches that are open but not yet full. Lisbon's hills are far easier in April than in August. Take the train up to Sintra for the palaces, spend an afternoon on port tastings in Porto, and if you are there over Easter, the Holy Week processions in Braga are the ones worth seeing. Obidos runs its chocolate festival around the same weeks.

Paris gardens come back in April: the Luxembourg, the Tuileries, and wisteria over the doorways in the smaller streets. Queues at the Louvre and Versailles are a fraction of the July wait. Further south, Provence is green before the lavender arrives and the Riviera is warm enough to eat outside. Loire cycling routes reopen. Start the Schengen paperwork early and check current rules.

April is the changeover month in Bali. The wet season is tailing off, rain comes in short bursts rather than all day, and room rates sit well below the July peak. Do the Ubud rice terraces and the temple mornings first, then move down to the south coast beaches. Komodo boat trips start running reliably from now on, and Borobudur in Java is worth the extra flight if you have the days. Packages average around Rs 36,000 per person.

Known For : Stay in an Overwater Bungalow Ithaa Undersea Restaurant Scuba Diving in Maldives

The dry season closes at the end of April, so this is the last run of settled weather before the rains arrive. Days average thirty-one degrees, nights twenty-seven, and snorkelling visibility is still good. The northern and central atolls stay drier than the south if you want to hedge. A short hop from most Indian metros is what makes it work as a five-night trip in the school holidays. Packages average around Rs 89,000 per person.

Best Time: December to April

102 Maldives Attractions

Known For : Gardens by the Bay Universal Studios Singapore Marina Bay Sands

April lines up with the Indian school holidays, and Singapore remains the easiest first trip abroad for a family with children. Universal Studios and the Sentosa cable car, the Gardens by the Bay domes when the afternoon heat builds, and Little India for food that everyone in the group will eat. It is hot and humid with regular afternoon showers, but almost everything on the list is indoors or air-conditioned. Packages average around Rs 60,000 per person.

Best Time: February to September

273 Singapore Attractions

Daylight stretches to fourteen hours by late April and the countryside greens up after the winter. Eight to twelve degrees means a real jacket, and showers come with the territory. Drive the North Coast 500, walk in the Cairngorms, and if you are in Edinburgh on the night of 30 April, the Beltane Fire Festival takes over Calton Hill. Costs sit well below the August festival season.

April is mid-autumn in New Zealand, roughly ten to twenty degrees, and the poplars and beech around Queenstown and Wanaka turn gold. The walking tracks are quiet after the summer rush and lodge rates have come down. The North Island stays warmer than the South. Some alpine huts and trailhead shuttles begin winding down late in the month, so confirm before you commit to a multi-day walk.

Autumn thins out the bush and shrinks the waterholes, which is what you want for game viewing in Kruger. Twenty to twenty-eight degrees, and the Cape winelands are into harvest. Cape Town is still warm enough for Table Mountain and the Garden Route drive south. Whale watching at Hermanus does not start until mid-year, so leave that for another trip. A safari paired with Cape Town is usually built to order rather than bought as a fixed package.

Warm and humid, twenty-seven to thirty-three degrees, with rain most afternoons. Malaysia in April is less about the weather and more about value and ease: Langkawi's beaches, the canopy walkway at Taman Negara, and Kuala Lumpur for shopping and street food during the school break. Penang deserves two days on its own for the food alone. Packages average around Rs 54,000 per person.

Mid-autumn is Australia's most workable stretch for a long trip. Sydney and Melbourne are cool enough to walk all day, the Red Centre is no longer dangerous in the afternoon, and the Great Barrier Reef is past its stinger and cyclone season. Barossa is picking grapes. The Easter school holidays push flights and hotels up sharply, so travel either side of them if your dates allow.

Be honest with yourself about the heat first. April is Cambodia's hottest month and Angkor can touch forty-one degrees by mid-afternoon, so temple visits mean sunrise starts and a long break at noon. What you get in return is Khmer New Year in the middle of the month, when Phnom Penh empties out to the villages and the smaller towns fill with games, music and sand stupas. Food and local transport cost very little, which is what makes a longer stay easy.

April is the last comfortable month in Oman before the summer closes the country down for anything outdoors. Get the wadis, Nizwa fort and the Wahiba dunes done now rather than in May. Jabal Akhdar sits high enough to stay cool, and its terraced Damask roses come into flower towards the end of the month, followed by the rosewater distilling in the villages.

Known For : Hong Kong Disneyland Ngong Ping 360 Cable Car Tian Tan Buddha

Twenty to twenty-five degrees, but humid, and the harbour often sits under haze, so do not build the trip around the view from Victoria Peak. Everything else works well this month: Disneyland without queueing in the heat, the Ching Ming and Tin Hau festivals, and dim sum weather in the old tea houses off Pottinger Street. Best paired with a second stop rather than run as a whole holiday.

Best Time: October to December (Autumn)

336 Hong Kong Attractions