Summer can keep the sunburn. Shoulder season (or what the normies call “fall travel”) is where travel gets hot. From post-Labor Day to late fall, prices and crowds tend to cool and you finally get some elbow room.
With KAYAK on deal patrol 24/7, we’ll find the good stuff, you take the credit. Ready to swap lines for more time? Your post‑summer escape starts here.
HIGHLIGHTS SUMMARY
How shoulder season travel stacks up.
Europe leads the way in travel deals.
Top deals: Why Spain is owning shoulder season.
Looking for the biggest airfare drops? Spain is crushing it this shoulder season for US travelers, with four cities in the top ten for flight price cuts – with lower airfares by nearly 47% for shoulder season compared to peak summer. That’s a serious deal for some of Europe’s hottest spots.
Domestic travel deals worth knowing about.
And here are the 10 most affordable domestic destinations by average airfare in shoulder season:
Tips for saving big during shoulder season.
Ready to make the most of shoulder season? Here are our tips to help you lock in the best deals via KAYAK.ai (beta), our innovation sandbox — a place to experiment, uncover what resonates with travelers, and roll those best AI discoveries into KAYAK.com and our core travel tools.
Start with an idea, not a destination.
You don’t need your destination locked in. Just tell KAYAK.ai the vibe and budget (sunny and under $300? Cultural but low‑key?) and it’ll do the searching for you.
Spot the best days to fly.
Our tool can recommend the best days to travel for any destination. No need to scroll through the calendar.
Get your trip ready in seconds.
KAYAK.ai pulls together destination ideas, price estimates and travel tips into a quick, personalized snapshot, making trip planning faster, easier and a lot more fun.
If you’ve been holding out on booking those trips, shoulder season just made it a lot easier to say yes. Lower prices, smaller crowds and great weather combine to create the perfect travel sweet spot.
Start searching on KAYAK today for flights, hotels and rental cars and get ready to make your post-summer getaway a reality.
Methodology
Flight insights in this report are based on flight searches made on KAYAK in the period between 04/15/2025 and 07/31/2025 for flights with departure between 09/15/2025 and 11/15/2025 (shoulder season) from any US airport. They were compared year-over-year to searches made in the same search and travel period in 2024.
For the seasonal comparison, these were also compared to searches made between 01/01/2025 and 04/15/2025 for flights with departure between 06/01/2025 and 07/31/2025. All flight prices are average prices for economy, round-trip tickets (except average prices for other classes).
Insights relating to hotels and car rentals are based on searches made on KAYAK for the same search and travel periods as for the flight searches. These are then compared to the same periods in 2024 and July and August 2025. All hotel prices are average for one night in any star category for a standard double room. All car rental prices are daily averages on rental cars.
All prices may vary and savings cannot be guaranteed. Percentages for changes in searches are approximate.
