Love Spring, but Hate Winter? We’ve Got You Covered

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Climate envy doesn’t hit so hard in May— at least, not if you live in the northern hemisphere. When we publish reports of locations around the world where the temperatures are pleasant year-round, we almost always refer to them as “spring-like.”

That, for many of us, is the ideal. Shirtsleeve weather in the daytime, maybe a jacket once the sun goes down. Warm enough to have lunch on a balcony, but not so hot that afternoons mean cowering in an air-conditioned basement until the sun goes down. There’s more, though, to changing seasons than just the weather. Making it through another winter, feeling the energy of bursting flowerbuds and greening fields, shutting off the central heating for another year—these are the perennial joys of the temperate latitudes.

While there’s a lot to be said for tropical living, the annual return of springtime is one pleasure it can’t compete with. Is spring enough to make winter worthwhile, though?

Well, that depends on your winter. And that’s something that you can easily tweak. Springtime in Portugal, in coastal Spain, or in Provence, France, is as exuberant and joyful as anywhere on the planet.

Wild flowers pattern wheatfields with haloes of poppy red, cornflower blue, and cowslip yellow. Jacaranda blossom paints hillsides with Impressionist brushstrokes. The first cicadas of the year soundtrack the twilight as evening falls.

And yet, it all comes off the back of a winter that might not even have had a single night below freezing. It feels almost like cheating—all the beauty of spring, but without the drudgery of winter. In the right locations—many featured in this month’s issue—seasonality doesn’t have to hurt.