9 most romantic places to visit in spring
Find love, beauty, and inspiration through travel.
As the flowers begin to bloom, so can romance! These destinations have inspired poets and songwriters for centuries. Find more ideas in the National Geographic book, The World’s Most Romantic Destinations.
Paris (France)
If romance is your stock-in-trade, then springtime in the City of Love is your iconographic gold mine. To borrow from the lyrics of “April In Paris”: Chestnuts blossoming. Picnics proliferating. Hearts singing. What lovestruck listener wouldn’t buy in?
The Moselle (Western Europe)
Since the early days of the Roman Empire, there’s been almost uninterrupted viticulture here—whether by medieval monks or 21st-century Riesling producers—so wine tasting is the traditional must-do for visitors.
Marrakech (Morocco)
If, as Ray Bradbury contended, “we travel for romance, we travel for architecture, and we travel to be lost,” Marrakech wins the triple crown. You and your partner will find and lose yourselves in kaleidoscopic, conjoined courtyards; dusty, serpentine markets; and misty, private hammams.
Osa Peninsula (Costa Rica)
The two most important words on any trip to Costa Rica: “pura vida,” translating literally to “pure life”—and figuratively to “life sure is good in this insanely beautiful earthly paradise.”
Charleston (South Carolina)
“You can never completely escape the sensuous, semitropical pull of Charleston,” wrote legendary low-country author Pat Conroy. And the moment you catch your first glimpse of palmetto-lined streets and 18th-century architecture, you’ll know just what he means. Especially in the spring, when the scent of blooming wisteria, jasmine, camellia, and magnolia fills the air.
Kyoto (Japan)
Start with a city that’s magical under any circumstances (see: temples, teahouses, and the 10,000 tangerine torii below). Cover it in floral fairy dust from the end of March through the beginning of April. Then just try not to fall under the resulting spell.
London (England)
With recording studios that produced “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “Love Me Do” and theaters that premiered “Romeo and Juliet” and “Antony and Cleopatra,” London has given rise to some of the world’s most iconic odes to romance. And springtime in this city helps you understand why: Daffodils, rhododendrons, and azaleas set the Royal Parks ablaze.
Bruges (Belgium)
Bruges is tailor-made for courtship. Chocolates? On every block. Flowers? Copious in the spring. And romantic walks? See the swan-filled Lake of Love, where the local Romeo and Juliet (Stromberg and Minna) live on in lore. Tradition holds that your own love will become eternal by the lake—as long as you kiss on the bridge (an unavoidable occurrence given your surroundings).
Atacama and Uyuni (Chile and Bolivia)
When Pablo Neruda wrote his most celebrated collection of love poems, “The Captain’s Verses,” his reference to the harshest desert wasn’t entirely figurative. The native Chilean spent a lot of time in Atacama, the driest nonpolar place on Earth. And when you and your partner see this hauntingly beautiful stretch for yourselves, you’ll understand why it figures into his poems. It’s utterly otherworldly.
Photographs by Shutterstock.
