Avert your eyes, long-term planners: We’re here to tell the rest of you that it’s not too late to plan a spring break trip. In fact, ’tis the season for last-minute travel, as northerners’ patience for dreary weather starts to lapse and longer days leave us pining for warmer ones.
Below, we’ve compiled a list of six perfectly seasonal escapes, all inspired by our annual list of where to go in the year ahead. These places are especially wonderful to visit in the months of March, April and May, according to our network of travel advisers and exclusive price data from Kayak. Not only do they offer great vacation vibes, but you’ll also find excellent value.
For insights on what you might spend on both hotels and airfare to each of these places—all customized based on where you’re coming from—check out our interactive 2025 travel tool here.
Antigua & Barbuda
In April and May, luxury hotel rates fall from a high of $561 per night to just around $320—which is roughly what you’d pay during the hurricane-prone months of July, August and September. One place we’re jonesing to stay? The all-inclusive Hermitage Bay, which admittedly costs a lot more. (Rooms start at $2,899 for two people, including meals and drinks.) Shortly after we finished our annual “Where to Go” feature for 2025, the hotel finished a multimillion-dollar renovation that made the 20-year-old icon feel fresh again. The additions include new villas stilted over the sandy shore and a new restaurant run by a Nobu protégé. But the amenity that has us booking airfare is a new beachfront “tree bar,” with seating built around a giant trunk and bohemian wicker lanterns hanging from the branches above. Rum punches for two, please.
Los Angeles
We told you Los Angeles would be a hot spot for its dining scene this year, but we couldn’t have predicted what the city would go through in January—and how urgently those restaurants would need you to pay them a visit. Tourism began to bounce back just weeks after catastrophic wildfires caused $164 billion in destruction across the city. And that’s largely because Tinseltown’s main sights and tourist attractions were unaffected by those early January fires. Still, the city has seen a portion of its population decamp while it begins the long process of rebuilding homes, leaving out-of-towners to fill the gap for local businesses. One way to do it is by staying at the Fairmont Breakers Long Beach, a 100-year-old institution fresh off a $150 million face-lift; its penthouse has just reopened as the Sky Room, a rebirth of an Old Hollywood icon where you can dine on passionfruit-topped hiramasa kingfish crudo in a dining room once frequented by Rita Hayworth and Clark Gable. Then stop by Santa Monica’s Seline and West Hollywood’s Somni—the boldface restaurants we told you about in December—before wrapping your food tour at modern Korean temple Ki, which serves a highly inventive multicourse tasting menu for $285 to just 12 diners per night.
San Diego
By May the storied, 938-room Hotel Del Coronado will put the finishing touches on its $500 million renovation—one of the most expensive hotel overhauls in US history. Most of the work is already done; just two restaurants, including a Nobu outpost, have yet to open. But its new seaside villas are taking reservations, and the meticulous reconstruction of the historic Victorian lobby and its front porch have already won architectural preservation and design awards.
If you’re looking for something more intimate, the Granger, with one-tenth of the Del’s total capacity, is newly opened in a 1904 Romanesque building with dramatically tall windows; its location in the Gaslamp district puts it within easy walking distance of many of the city’s best rooftop bars, restaurants and microbreweries. The destination is a good one for points hounds: You can book the Del with Hilton points, and the Granger through Marriott Bonvoy.
Seville
It can be tricky to explain why some places appear to become trendy overnight, but we knew Seville would have an “it” factor this year even before it started bubbling up all over our social feeds. Among the things that are working in favor of the Andalusian capital: Its compact size means you can see it in a long weekend, a spate of new hotel openings has brought a much-needed influx of chic-yet-affordable places to stay, and the weather is consistently mild and balmy. The city also has great culinary range: You’ve got Moorish tavernas like El Rincón that date to the late 1600s and modernist tapas bars such as Eslava. Extend your stay with a few days at Kukutana, a family estate that was converted into a six-room, all-inclusive resort three years ago. It’s less than an hour’s drive southwest of Seville in the 247,000-acre Doñana National Park, where you can spot Iberian lynx roaming the grounds or go horseback riding on dune-lined beaches.
Lexington, Kentucky
April is track month in this horse racing capital, which is second only to Louisville for equestrian sports and every bit as exciting a city to visit. Keeneland, Lexington’s answer to Churchill Downs, hosts races from April 4 to 25; after that come the thoroughbred sales events, where people bid upwards of $10 million for the most promising racehorse colts. Tailgating is part of the fun, though here it’s less parking-lot-beer-fest and more gracious-Southern-hospitality (think a manicured gardenlike setting flanked by flowering crabapple trees). Complementing that scene is a restorative dose of rugged nature: The Raven Run nature sanctuary has rambling hiking trails and bluegrass meadows hugging the Kentucky River, all less than 20 miles from the center of downtown. Bonus: At publication time, you could still find prime hotel rooms for under $200, even in the thick of race season.
Out Islands, Bahamas
Spring isn’t typically the moment for hotel openings in the Bahamian Isles (the pricey “festive” season, aka Christmas and New Year’s, is the big moment for swish new resort openings), but one exception quietly popped onto our radar recently: the just-opened Coral Sands Inn & Cottages on Harbour Island’s Pink Sands beach. (The redundancy in those names should give you a sense of what makes the place so special.) The vibe is retro maximalism, yielding such a fun blend of whimsy and kitsch you’d think the design team went on a side quest to find the island’s best Bahama Mama. Counter stools and patio chairs have seashell-shaped seat backs; the lobby furnishings sport boldly patterned upholstery and tassels and nautical rope; and bedrooms have whimsical splashes like pink claw-foot bathtubs and elaborate canopy beds. At the main Pink Mermaid bar, shell- and coral-covered light fixtures look like they were assembled by talented seagulls combing the shore. Sleepy beach relaxation this is not; creative fever dream, it absolutely is.
