Where to travel in May

Temperatures in Mediterranean, Aegean and Ionian waters start to rise, many of the region’s lidos and beach clubs open, and Ibiza's superclub season gets underway with big launch parties.

There are plenty of seaside arts festivals kicking off, too. Notably Brighton Festival (3-26 May 2025) in the UK — a mega multi-arts event taking over the Sussex coastal city, with a programme large enough to warrant its own fringe event — and the 77th Cannes Film Festival will celebrate Hollywood's biggest names and new releases in the south of France (13-24 May 2025). 

Out in the water, there's the arrival of migratory marine life. Whale sharks start appearing around the Ningaloo Reef off the coast of Western Australia. In Madeira, there will be a surge in sightings of blue whales, pods of dolphins and sea turtles, as whale-watching season kicks off. And in Scotland, May heralds the arrival of more orcas. If you’re lucky, you might spot them on the Hebridean Whale Trail, which skirts the northwest Highlands, the isle of Skye and the Hebrides.

Nature also springs into life in the UK and Ireland's ancient woodlands at this time of year, with carpets of bluebells blooming, usually between mid-April and mid-May, and dedicated trails opening in National Trust estates so fans can stroll among them. 

Guernsey, Channel Islands

Spring in the UK’s Channel Islands is a season of celebration, with a bevy of high-profile events including the Guernsey Literary Festival (25 April-4 May 2025). This two-week book bonanza features more than 50 events including local and international authors introducing their new titles with readings, signings and Q&As, along with illustration classes for kids and book-themed tea parties.

For lovers of the outdoors, there’s also Guernsey’s annual Spring Walking Festival, which arrives towards the end of the month (24 May-8 June 2025) with organised hikes, foraging tours, guided rambles and urban walks taking in Guernsey’s fascinating geology, winding coastline, World War history and abundant displays of bluebells and spring flowers. Liberation Day (9 May) commemorates the island’s freedom from German occupation during World War II with celebrations and fireworks over St Peter Port.

Paris, France

La Nuit des Musées (Night of the Museums) is just one excuse to book a trip to Paris in the spring. This annual event, usually held on the third Saturday of the month (18 May 2025) sees numerous arts and culture institutions in the French capital offer free admission, keeping doors open as late as midnight, with special illuminations and DJ sessions. This includes the famed Centre Pompidou, which is set to close for a five-year renovation period at the end of summer.

May is also a great time to explore Paris as an open-air gallery: works by contemporary artists are displayed in the garden of the Fondation Cartier; the seven-acre garden of the Musée Rodin is punctuated by the sculptor’s works; and the Musée Bourdelle has monumental sculptures amid the greenery. The Tuileries Tunnel, a defunct underground road link, became an 800-metre-long street-art gallery in 2023, with Paris-themed murals by European artists including Andrea Ravo Mattoni, Hydrane and Madame waiting to be explored.

(Don't miss out on the best macarons Paris has to offer in these spots.)

Memphis, USA

During Memphis in May, artists, musicians and chefs converge on the Tennessee home of blues, soul and rock ‘n’ roll for a month-long festival, each year focused on a different foreign destination – last year it was Malaysia and this year it will be South Korea. Expect street music, BBQ cook-offs and sports events including the Great American River Run along the banks of the Mississippi. A £49.5m transformation of riverfront Tom Lee Park brought new pavilions, sound gardens and the Canopy Walk — an elevated trail connecting the park to downtown — while recent urban investment has created a hotel boom, with many new openings in revived historic buildings, including an old train stop reborn as Central Station, and chic neighbourhood hotel Arrive in a former art school. The city’s restaurants, too, are shifting from traditional meat-focused models, with a burgeoning number of creative vegan restaurants.

(A music-themed guide to Memphis, the birthplace of blues and rock 'n' roll.)

Madeira, Portugal

This autonomous island outpost of Portugal, set in the subtropical waters off northwest Africa, has become something of a hub for nature and adventure travel. Surrounded by wildlife-rich Atlantic swells with sizeable surf breaks and wreck-dive sites, Madeira’s thickly forested interior is famed for its 1,350-mile network of levadas — old aqueducts that have created one of the most novel terrains for hiking in Europe. Here, self-guided walks offer panoramic views and guided tours reveal Madeira’s botanical secrets, including carpets of wildflowers in spring and early summer.

The island holds its annual flower festival in May with a floral float parade in the capital of Funchal, where parks and greenspaces are bright with blooms. There’s ample opportunity for canyoning and coasteering activities across the island’s steep, craggy cliffs and chains of waterfalls, while whale-watching season starts around this time of year, too.

(See Madeira's dramatic landscapes, from sea pools to volcanic heights.)

Australia

As autumn and winter hit the south-coast cities Down Under, May is an excellent time to take an adventure into the Outback — especially with two otherworldly spectacles waiting in the Northern Territory. The first, Wintjiri Wiru, is the mesmerizing sound and light show at Uluru. With a name that suggests a ‘beautiful view out to the horizon’ in the local Anangu language, the immersive performance includes a choreographed sequence of 1,000 luminous drones lifting ancient Indigenous images to the sky, telling a chapter of the Mala ancestral story from Uluru and Kaltukatjara (Docker River).

It's the first projection and drone show of this scale running as a regular attraction anywhere, and was created in a partnership between Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia and the Anangu — custodians of the region and one of the world’s oldest living continuous cultures. Visitors can view it from a sustainably built platform atop a desert dune.

Another immersive, large-scale artwork, the Light-Towers, is located in Australia’s Red Centre. This installation by British/Australian artist Bruce Munro features 69 two-metre-high towers that change colour in keeping with the music that plays from within them. It's the second Outback art piece from Munro, whose Field of Light was installed at Uluru in 2016.

Plus, May will be the last chance to catch Melbourne's biggest free street art exhibition The Outsiders in the famous Hosier Lane before it closes at the end of the month. Expect to browse works by Banksy, Swoon and more.

(Soak up the final days of the Australian summer on its top beaches.)