March is a lie. It pretends to be spring, but in most of the Northern Hemisphere, it’s just a slushy, grey transition period where your shoes are always damp and you’ve forgotten what the sun looks like. Most people use it as an excuse to go get a sunburn in Florida with ten thousand screaming college kids. Don’t do that.

I’ve spent the last six years trying to figure out how to handle this month without losing my mind. I’ve had some spectacular failures—like the time I thought Iceland would be “moody” and “cool” in March but ended up stuck in a snowbank near Vik for nine hours—and some surprise wins. Here is my totally biased, non-professional opinion on where you should actually go.

New Orleans before the humidity kills you

New Orleans in March is the sweet spot. You’re past the absolute chaos of Mardi Gras (which, honestly, is overrated unless you enjoy being hit in the face with cheap plastic beads) and you’re just before the Jazz Fest crowds start inflating hotel prices by 300%.

The weather is actually tolerable. It’s usually around 70 degrees. What I mean is—actually, let me put it differently. It’s the only time of year you can walk down Bourbon Street without the smell of old beer and humidity hitting you like a physical wall. I spent four days there last March and managed to walk 12 miles a day without needing three showers.

Go to Frenchman Street instead of Bourbon. Eat at a place called Peche. I’m pretty sure their whole grilled fish changed my DNA. Also, stay in the Garden District. The Quarter is for tourists who want to buy t-shirts that say “I got hammered in NOLA.” You’re better than that.

The time I almost died in a Dacia Duster

I know people will disagree with me here, but I think visiting Iceland in March is a gamble that most people lose. I used to think it was the ultimate “adventure” move. I was completely wrong.

In 2019, I rented a Dacia Duster—the cheapest 4×4 I could find for $88 a day—and tried to do the South Coast. The wind in Iceland in March felt like a giant trying to peel my skin off with a butter knife. I got caught in a whiteout, the car slid into a ditch, and I had to pay a local farmer $240 to pull me out with a tractor. He didn’t even say hello. He just took the cash and pointed back toward Reykjavik.

If you go to Iceland in March for the Northern Lights, you will likely spend 90% of your time staring at a grey cloud while shivering in a gas station eating a $15 hot dog.

I might be wrong about this, maybe I just had bad luck, but I’m never doing it again. The “shoulder season” savings aren’t worth the existential dread of driving on black ice for six hours straight.

Mexico City is the only right answer

If you have five days in March, go to Mexico City (CDMX). This isn’t a suggestion; it’s a command. This is when the Jacaranda trees bloom. The entire city turns this specific shade of electric purple. It’s honestly a bit much, like the city is showing off.

I tracked my spending on my last trip there: $1,140 for six days, including a very nice Airbnb in Roma Norte and way too many tacos from El Vilsito. The temperature is a consistent 75 degrees during the day. It’s perfect. It’s the Thursday of months—it feels like something good is about to happen.

Anyway, I once spent three hours just sitting in Parque Mexico watching people walk their dogs. There was a guy with eight Golden Retrievers all sitting in a perfect line. I don’t know how he did it. I can’t even get my cat to stop eating my plants. But I digress.

The CDMX move:

• Eat at Contramar. Yes, everyone says this. No, they aren’t lying. The tuna tostadas are worth the hype.
• Walk through Coyoacán on a weekday.
• Avoid the Anthropology Museum on a Sunday unless you love crowds.

The Florida problem (and why I’m a hater)

I refuse to recommend Florida in March. I don’t care if the weather is nice. I actively tell my friends to avoid it. It’s a humid strip mall for people who have given up on discovery. Between the spring breakers in Fort Lauderdale and the mouse-ear-wearing families in Orlando, there is no room to breathe.

I have this perhaps unfair theory that Florida in March is where creativity goes to die. You’re just paying $400 a night for a Marriott room that smells like chlorine and disappointment. If you want a beach, go to Oaxaca. If you want a theme park, stay home and watch a movie. Total waste of money.

I’ve bought the same pair of $130 Patagonia shorts for three different March trips. I don’t care if there’s something better out there; they work. That’s how I feel about travel—find the thing that works and stop trying to optimize every single second of your life.

Is it weird that I get more excited about a specific taco stand in a foreign city than I do about my actual job? Maybe. But March is the month where that itch becomes unbearable. You just have to pick a direction and go, as long as that direction isn’t Orlando.

Where are you even thinking of going? I genuinely want to know if I’m missing something about the desert or if everyone is just as tired of the rain as I am.

Go to Mexico City. Seriously.