The 15 best destinations for a Christmas holiday – still with availability

Want to flee home for the festive period? These are the best breaks to book now, all with availability

I skipped Christmas a while back. As Slade’s Noddy Holder yowled “It’s Chriiistmaaas!” on radios and the nation worked itself into a retail frenzy, I breezed through December without a moment of seasonal hysteria because I would be abroad on the big day. Best decision I’d made in years.
The thing about the Christmas break is that it arrives freighted with expectations. More than at any other time of year, Christmas is someone else’s idea of a good time: maybe the advertisers’ one of ostentatious gift-giving or the TV one of banal sentimentality. Even the standard-issue one of precious family moments and perfect lunches is a hand-me-down from the Victorians.
I’m sure all the above are possible. But, gosh, they require a lot of effort, a lot of biting of tongues. That doesn’t sound like a break to me.
The solution lay in these pages all the time. Avoid the hassle, go away. That’s why we’ve pulled together this themed list of trips which are still available over the festive period. The 15 escapes of Christmas, if you like.
What about the cost, you ask. Sure, some of these getaways are seasonal treats to yourself. Others, however, work out at around £150 a head per day. Consider the savings on food, booze and presents, not to mention your mental health amid winter’s gloom, and tell me that doesn’t appeal.
Find the perfect break for you:
It’s Christmas but not as you know it – Caribbean winter sun with added (rum) punch. Whereas every other destination in the region celebrates carnival in summer, St Kitts holds its event over the festive period. After warm-up events from December 13, Sugar Mas lets rip on Boxing Day in Basseterre then builds to the J’ouvert main procession on New Year’s Day: outrageous costumed parades, soca and calypso bands. Also an imprudent volume of rum, I expect. No matter. Your four-star hotel is near to hand: St Kitts Marriott Resort, a sprawling beachfront stay at Frigate Bay, close (but not too close) to Basseterre.
Book it: Seven nights’ room-only, including flights, from £2,269pp with British Airways
The secret to a Christmas getaway? Don’t over-complicate things: keep flights simple, make transfers painless. Which brings me to Thailand’s Koh Samui, newly accessible via single-ticket bookings from Gatwick via Bangkok. Backpackers gripe that it has lost its soul. The last time I visited, palm trees still clacked behind beautiful beaches. The hospitality at the luxury Ritz-Carlton could still thaw a winter-chilled heart. Its sea views still mesmerised. And consider this if you sought another excuse to go now: Season 3 of White Lotus, released next year, was filmed in the hotel. Do you want a five-star holiday among White Lotus wannabes? Thought not.
Book it: Seven nights’ B&B double from £3,274 at The Ritz-Carlton, Koh Samui
Skip Bali this year. Faced with congestion and rowdy visitors, tourist authorities said “enough” in September, slapping a moratorium on development. Choose Bawah Reserve instead. A hang-the-expense private island between Malaysia and Borneo, named Indonesia’s sixth best stay this year, it’s Robinson Crusoe with five-star facilities: 35 eco-suites and villas of crafted woody beauty over sea and among pristine jungle; spa treatments and yoga in a wellness centre; things to paddle on, sea the colour of Paul Newman’s eyes; cocktails in the Grouper Bar then Asian-fusion cuisine at the Tree Top restaurant, perhaps a movie at the open-air cinema. Good luck re-entering the real world.
Book it: Seven nights’ full-board, including flights, transfers, activities and festive parties from £8,750pp with 360 Private Travel
Emily in Paris went skiing in Mègeve in homage to her heroine Audrey Hepburn. Now it’s your turn. Scenes for the Netflix series (episode six, if you’re wondering) and Hepburn’s 1963 film Charade were filmed in the glamorous French ski resort at the heart of the Evasion Mont Blanc ski area. If you arrive with a starlet’s budget, stay like Emily and book the five-star Four Seasons. Otherwise I’d go for an eco-studio at the cracking-value Residence Pierre & Vacances Le Mont d’Arbois. Either way the village is alpine France at its most romantic; a snowglobe-pretty scene of posh boutiques, horse-drawn carriages and a tree twinkling on the square.
Book it: Seven nights’ self-catering for two from £1,592 with Heidi
You’re going to Norway’s Lofoten islands now because they’re teetering on over-tourism in summer and six new flight schedules to Tromsø significantly eases winter travel. Always astonishing, the archipelago in winter has a wild, edge-of-the-world quality, especially when storms slam like Thor’s hammer. Bags dropped in a cute rorbu cabin beside Svolvaer harbour (this is Norway: insulation is superb), this new trip only schedules a half-day immersion into local life with a nature photographer, so you can tour at leisure. Options include kayaking or a sea eagle safari. Equally just stroll in a destination seemingly realised from myth. Your holiday, your choice.
Book it: Four nights’ self-catering, including flights and car hire, from £2,110pp with Regent
All set for a giddy winter wonderland? Then to Pembrokeshire we go. No, don’t laugh. Bluestone near Narberth – the best holiday park in Wales, reckons consumer group Which? – transforms into the Kingdom of the Elves at Christmas: pixie singalongs at breakfast (look, your tots will love it), Polar Postal delivered by Santa’s helpers, activities in the Elf School Journey, a Jingle Jive disco and Saint Nic’ in a forest cabin. For young children it’s a festive blast with a tropical indoor wave pool on the side. For you, there’s Boxing Day’s Merryathon fun run, monitored presumably by elvan safety (sorry.) If anyone still mocks, show them the price. That’ll shut them up.
Book it: Three nights’ self-catering for four from £1,040 at Bluestone
There’s an alternative big day to the Christmas card images in your head. It’s the Miracle on 34th Street one of ice-skating rinks, spectacular window displays along Fifth Street, snowy Central Park and a huge tree twinkling outside the Rockerfeller Center. New York puts on the glitz during Christmas (sorry, Holiday). Just launched, this trip includes tickets to a song-and-dance extravaganza at Radio City and The Lion King (or other blockbuster show), a spin on the rink at the Rockefeller Center plus stellar pizza on a Williamsburg food tour. All terrific but all a precursor to a ride over the city by helicopter.
Book it: Five nights’ room-only, including activities, flights and transfers, from £2,700pp with Original Travel
Santa lives at the North Pole. Every child knows that. What they don’t know is that a polar holiday in winter is a big ask. The helpful people at Aurora Zone have persuaded him into a red cabin in the snowy hills of north Finland, newly accessible by a British Airways flight to Ivalo. You’re taken there by an elf, transferred on a sleigh pulled by snowmobile (Rudolf and pals are conserving their energy). If meeting Santa is the highlight of this trip based at Saariselkä wilderness resort, its three-day itinerary includes the stuff memories are made of: a chance to mush huskies through snow-smudged woods, a reindeer sleigh-ride plus gingerbread-making in the elves’ hut.
Book it: Four nights’ full-board, including activities, flights and transfers, from £2,375pp with The Aurora Zone
You know when Christmas feels best? During the pre or post-lunch walk – something to do with the endorphins and serotonin released by activity outdoors, I expect. The implication is obvious: skip the presents and turkey, concentrate on the walking instead. Specifically, six days on this new guided hike along Peru’s Salkantay Trek. It’s the back door to Machu Picchu, ascending into the big stuff at 4,000m altitude on daily routes of six to nine miles. Whereas most hikers rough it in tents, you end each day with hot tubs and fireplaces, massages and comfy beds in a luxury lodge. Treat yourself – it’s Christmas.
Book it: Nine nights’ full-board on trek (otherwise B&B), including transfers, from £4,495pp with KE Adventure
Kerala is 55 per cent Hindu, 25 per cent Muslim and 15 per cent Christian. In other words, Christmas is met with a shrug. To be sure of escaping the festive hullabaloo, drop off the radar at this community-focused, good-vibes surf operator. As Christmas approaches in a blurry booze-fuelled week at home, you’ll be saluting the sun in yoga classes above the sea. On the big day you’ll wake not to chilly grey skies but to tropical zephyrs then ride friendly waves in bath-warm seas with an instructor. It’s blue health in action – the emerging science that we’re happiest by the ocean. Still unconvinced? Look at the price.
Book it: Seven nights’ B&B double from £840 with Soul & Surf
Never mind two-for-one on pigs-in-blankets, this is a festive BOGOF deal. It’s a stylish two-destination tour which slyly sidetracks the festivities. First up, a guided tour of Oman: the safest, sunniest destination in the Middle East. After the souks in Muscat, you discover a land of mountains and deserts revered by romantics from Lawrence of Arabia and Wilfred Thesiger. They roughed it. You’re in luxury desert camps and mountain villages. Six days later and one four-hour flight, you arrive in the Maldives. Five days’ dropped off the radar at Six Senses Laamu on remote Laamu Atoll, a private-island paradise built from silky sand, wellness and stellar watersports? Perfect.
Book it: Eleven nights B&B, including flights and transfers, from £8,950pp with Abercrombie & Kent
The gamble of cruising is fellow passengers. So if you’re going at Christmas keep things classy. Enter luxury cruiser Regent with a circuit from Cape Town, topping the Post Office’s annual long-haul best-value survey. Indeed, this trip around Africa’s tip represents stellar value. Twenty-one tours are included in the price: from Christmas Eve in Namibian nature paradise Walvis Bay and a safari at Richards Bay’s Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve to a street-tour of vibrant Maputo in Mozambique. You won’t pay a penny for booze or to access the spa or to valet clothes. Five days (including Christmas Day) are spent at sea, basking in a Southern Hemisphere summer.
Book it: Fifteen nights’ full-board, including transfers and selected activities, from £8,339pp with Regent Seven Seas
It’s easy to forget as liners get bigger that ships were once beautiful and people lost their hearts to them. Sister-yachts Chronos and Rhea are 54m interpretations of classics from the golden age of sail. Their 13 en-suite cabins are pleasingly boaty. Their garages are full of toys and their crews invite you to haul ropes and take a turn at the helm, but are as happy to serve gin and tonic on the foredeck. As a Caribbean cruise, it’s a no-brainer. Your only decision is whether to sail from Martinique to Guadeloupe with Rhea or from Grenada to St Lucia with Chronos.
Book it: Seven nights’ full-board from £2,790pp with Venture Sail
Nowhere does bygone Christmas charm like Germany and Central Europe. They’re traditional crafts in festive markets, Glühwein in half-timbered squares on crisp nights, horse-drawn carriages through old towns shimmering with light. What spoils it rather is the schlep of touring. Unpack aboard luxury cruiser Riverside Mozart and you’re all done for almost a fortnight along the Danube. Highlights include Vienna, the cultured Christmas city par excellence, a day trip to Salzburg and Christmas Day among the film-set Baroque beauty of Passau or enjoying jolly festivities on a Bavarian farm. There’s also Bratislava. Lonely Planet tips Slovakia as a must-visit for 2025. You’re going for New Year’s Eve. Clever you.
Book it: Twelve nights’ full-board, including transfers, £5,266pp with Riverside Cruises
Watch It’s A Wonderful Life again if you want. I’d prefer to be in Sri Lanka, visa-free for Brits since October, on a new guided trip that reinterprets the Resplendent Isle as an adventure playground. You’ll paddle a kayak through the forest down the Gin River, climb up Unesco-listed fortress Sigirya and hike and camp among the jungly Knuckles Range. You’ll also cycle through tea country (mostly downhill, fortunately) and potter in languorous coastal Galle; I joined in a cricket match on my last visit. How do they offer it so cheaply? Prices in Sri Lanka are down 15 per cent on last year. A bargain.Book it: Nine nights’ B&B (plus five lunches and two dinners), including activities, from £1,505pp with intrepidtravel.com. 
This article was first published in November 2023, and has been revised and updated.