Methodology
How we match couples and rate places
Everything here is meant to be checkable. If a number is on the site, this page says where it came from.
Monthly weather
For each destination we average ten years (2015–2024) of daily ERA5 reanalysis data from Open-Meteo: daytime high, night low, rainfall, sunshine and, for coastal places, sea temperature (2023–2024). ERA5 tends to record light drizzle as rain in the tropics, so we count a “wet day” only from 3 mm of rain, and rate rain mainly by monthly millimetres.
How a month is rated
Each place has a comfortable range of daytime highs (for example 27–32°C for a tropical island, 17–27°C for Paris). A month scores on warmth (45%), dryness (45%) and sunshine (10%). Then:
- Cyclone, hurricane and typhoon seasons lower the score, using each ocean basin’s typical monthly activity.
- Known closures lower it (for example Santorini hotels in winter).
- What a place is famous for lifts it: snow and northern lights in Lapland in winter, the Great Migration in the Mara. A month that is very wet (200 mm or more), or that we warn is a monsoon or storm month, can only be lifted to Good, never Best. Snow seasons are the exception, because there the precipitation is the snow.
- Big cities are rated more gently in the off season, because museums and cafés don’t mind the rain.
Scores of 0.80 and above are Best, 0.64 and above Good, 0.45 and above Mixed, and anything lower Avoid.
Costs
Costs are editorial estimates for two people at three levels: simple (guesthouses and small hotels), comfort (a good four-star or boutique hotel) and splurge (a five-star resort or villa). Each covers a typical double room, food and experiences per day, plus mandatory extras such as green taxes, park fees, island transfers and tourist levies. Flights are not included. The estimates were set in October 2026 and are converted to your currency with the day’s exchange rate.
Prices on destination, cost and list pages are off-peak. Where a page is about a specific month (a Honeymoon Book, a tool with a month selected), peak months add 20% to the stay and say so. Treat every figure as a guide: real prices often vary by 25% or more with the exact hotel, dates and how early you book. A few fees depend on your passport (Bhutan’s development fee is lower for Indian, Bangladeshi and Maldivian passports), so pages for those countries show lower totals.
Flights are a rough economy-return range worked out from distance, plus any seaplane or island-hop leg. They are never live fares.
Visas
Visa requirements come from the open Passport Index dataset, checked for both partners’ passports. The stricter of the two decides. Rules change, so always confirm with the official government source before booking.
The Matchmaker
Every destination has around 40 trait scores from 0 to 10, such as beaches, privacy, snow, wildlife, food and culture. Each answer adjusts what a partner wants. A place’s match combines five parts:
- Taste (40%): how well its traits fit what you want.
- Season (20%): the rating for your month.
- Budget (15%): the most comfortable level your budget covers.
- Getting there (10%): travel time and visa effort for both passports.
- Moments (15%): whether the experiences you picked happen there.
Your priorities card re-weights these. Deal-breakers from either partner remove a place for both. For couples, the sweet spot is the place with the best blend of your average match and your lower match, so neither of you ends up somewhere you don’t want to be.