Picture the same beach town twice. In July, the boardwalk is shoulder to shoulder, dinner requires a reservation made days ago, and the hotel wants peak-week rates for a room overlooking the parking lot. Come back the third week of September and the water is still warm, the restaurants have tables, the prices have dropped, and the town has exhaled.
That second version is called the shoulder season, the stretch between peak crowds and the off-season quiet. For most of your working life it was off limits, locked away behind school calendars and summer vacation schedules. Retirement hands you the key.
The Week After Labor Day Changes Everything
Travel pricing runs on demand, and demand runs on the school calendar. The moment families head home in early September, flights, hotels, and rental homes in summer destinations get noticeably cheaper, sometimes dramatically so. The same is true in reverse each spring, in the weeks before Memorial Day.
The savings are only half of it. Fewer people means shorter lines at museums, easier reservations, room to breathe at the scenic overlook, and locals who have time to talk. Many travelers find the weather is actually better too, since early fall in much of Europe and the American West trades summer heat for warm days and crisp evenings.
Traveling on Everyone Else’s Off Weeks Is the Whole Point
For decades your trips were squeezed into the same weeks everyone else was traveling. The freedom to leave on a random Tuesday in late September is one of retirement’s genuinely underrated luxuries, and it is worth using deliberately rather than defaulting to the same summer patterns out of habit.
The couple who takes their big trip in September instead of July often spends less, sees more, and comes home more rested, for exactly the same destination.
Where the Shoulder Season Shines
- Europe in September and October. Summer crowds thin out while cafe weather holds, and harvest season fills the markets in wine and olive country.
- National parks after the holiday. The lodges open up, the trails quiet down, and early fall color arrives in the high country.
- Beach towns past Labor Day. Warm ocean, empty sand, and restaurant owners who are visibly happy to see you.
- Big cities in late spring. May in a major city beats August in the same city by ten degrees and half the lines.
A Few Habits That Make It Even Better
Shoulder-season travel rewards a little technique. Midweek flights are usually the calmest and often the cheapest. Booking directly and asking about off-peak or longer-stay rates can surprise you, since properties have more flexibility when they are not full. And with fewer crowds, this is the season for the slower, longer trip, two weeks somewhere at a walking pace instead of five cities in seven days.
Pack a layer, because shoulder-season evenings cool off. That is the entire downside.
The Calendar Is Yours Now
If you spent thirty years traveling when the crowds traveled, you earned the version where you do not have to. So here is a question worth sitting with while everyone else is booking next July: where would you go in September, now that September belongs to you?
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Ronald J. Briggs Jr., FIC, CRPC®, is an industry veteran with more than four decades of experience and the founder of Briggs Financial Group, Wealth Advisors (BFG). Alongside his team of tax and risk mitigation specialists, Ron serves clients across the U.S. from dual national headquarters in Brighton, Michigan and Bonita Springs, Florida.
BFG grew out of a firm Ron founded in late 2010: Caitlin John Private Wealth Management, a fiduciary Registered Investment Advisor named for the middle names of his and his wife Kristin's two children. His vision was to build a fiduciary-based advisory practice capable of serving his clients and the generations that follow them.
The boutique feel and personalized experience Ron's clients came to expect drew the attention of other advisors, both locally and nationally, and the firm grew accordingly. Each of those advisors joined Caitlin John to practice under a truly independent, fiduciary RIA while keeping the individual brand and identity they had built in their own community.
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