Volkshaus Basel

Basel, Switzerland

Basel is one of those cities we think deserves more weekends. It has serious museums and architecture, but it never feels like you need to spend three days racing between sights. The Rhine runs straight through everyday life here, people actually use the riverfront, and almost everything feels pleasantly close.

That is partly why we like Volkshaus Basel so much. It sits in lively Kleinbasel, just a few minutes from the Rhine, and was redesigned by Basel’s own Herzog & de Meuron. There are 45 rooms and suites, but the hotel feels like more than somewhere to sleep: the brasserie, IMI Bar and tree-covered inner courtyard make it a place locals use too.

September suits it. Basel is usually still mild enough for long walks and outdoor lunches, but you are entering proper city-break territory again. Have a slow breakfast, spend a few hours at the museums, walk home along the Rhine and end up back in the courtyard for dinner. It is the kind of trip that requires very little planning to be good.

Our tip: Don’t just cross the Rhine by bridge. Take the little Münster ferry from Kleinbasel towards Grossbasel instead. Basel’s four ferries have no engines and are pulled across using only the river current. The Münster ferry also gives you one of the best views back towards Basel Cathedral.

We’d choose it for: art, architecture and a two-night city escape that feels remarkably easy.

Sharm Hotel Mykonos

Mykonos, Greece

If you are going to do Mykonos, September is when we’d do it.

There is still plenty of island life left, but the feeling begins to shift away from the intensity of peak summer. Warm weather combined with lower visitor numbers is precisely why September is often recommended as one of the better months for Mykonos.

Sharm Hotel Mykonos gives you the version of the island we prefer. It sits above Tourlos Bay, around 800 metres from Mykonos Town, so you are close enough to go out for the evening without having to sleep in the middle of it. The hotel has 15 one-bedroom suites and four private villas, with generous outdoor spaces, sea or garden views, and private pools in several of the villas.

We’d spend very little time trying to tick things off here. Breakfast late, pool for a few hours, find a beach after lunch, go into town when the light starts changing. Repeat. Mykonos is much more enjoyable when you stop trying to conquer it.

Our tip: Save one evening for the hotel. Sharm can arrange private dining on your own terrace or beside the pool, with a personalised menu. On an island where evenings often revolve around going somewhere, staying put for once might end up being your favourite night.

We’d choose it for: one last proper dose of Greek summer.

Stockholm Stadshotell

Stockholm, Sweden

This is for anyone secretly ready for a sweater again.

September in Stockholm is the beginning of that very good Scandinavian in-between season. Temperatures are typically around 10 to 15°C, summer hasn’t completely disappeared, and yet sitting somewhere beautiful over dinner suddenly feels more appealing than spending every waking hour outside.

Few hotels make more sense for that mood than Stockholm Stadshotell. The 32-room hotel occupies a remarkable 1875 building in Södermalm, originally commissioned by Queen Dowager Josefina in memory of King Oscar I and carefully restored before becoming a hotel. Inside are two restaurants, a cocktail bar, lounge, courtyard and sauna with a cold plunge. The design takes cues from the Arts & Crafts movement, so there is craftsmanship everywhere without the place ever becoming precious about it.

What we especially like is that it doesn’t feel engineered exclusively for hotel guests. Food is a major part of the place, the Bistro has a more everyday rhythm, the former chapel has become the more intimate Dining Room, and the overall idea is closer to a great neighbourhood house where you also happen to be able to sleep upstairs.

Our tip: Book some sauna time for the late afternoon, especially after a long day walking Södermalm. And if you are there early enough in the month, look out for a kräftskiva. Swedish crayfish season traditionally runs through August and September, with crayfish, Västerbotten cheese, crispbread and the usual accompaniments.

We’d choose it for: the first properly cosy weekend of the year.

Casas da Quinta de Cima

Cacela Velha, Algarve, Portugal

If the plan is to pretend summer isn’t ending, go here.

September is arguably when the eastern Algarve makes the most sense. Early autumn tends to keep the warmth and swimmable sea of summer, with visitor numbers beginning to drop after the busiest weeks.

Casas da Quinta de Cima sits on a 50-hectare family estate near Cacela Velha, surrounded by citrus trees and countryside that eventually gives way to the Ria Formosa. Nine former farm workers’ houses have become enormous 70-square-metre suites, joined by two villas with their own pools. There is a white outdoor pool, gardens, terraces and enough space that doing almost nothing begins to feel like a perfectly respectable itinerary.

And this is a hotel where breakfast deserves part of the paragraph. The farm-to-table spread uses produce from the estate, with organic eggs, freshly squeezed orange juice, homemade jams, local bread, their own avocados and the sort of granola the hotel itself warns you may want to take home. Breakfast runs from 09:00 to 11:00, which is exactly how breakfast should behave on holiday.

Our tip: Head to Fábrica and take one of the little fishing boats across the Ria Formosa to the beach. Come back, raid the 24-hour honesty bar beside the pool and accept that you probably won’t be going anywhere else that afternoon.

We’d choose it for: barefoot days, long breakfasts and extending summer by another week.

Locke Copenhagen

Copenhagen, Denmark

Copenhagen rarely needs much convincing, but September gives us another excuse.

And there is now somewhere new to stay. Locke Copenhagen opened in 2026 as the brand’s first Scandinavian hotel, occupying two striking rotunda towers in Postbyen, close to Copenhagen Central Station, Tivoli Gardens, the Meatpacking District and the waterfront. There are 234 studios and apartments, plus a restaurant, coffee shop, rooftop bar, gym and social spaces.

The appeal here is less about traditional hotel luxury and more about having a genuinely good base in the city. Every studio has its own kitchen and dining space, so you can stay for four nights without slowly losing your mind in a conventional hotel room. The interiors bring warm wood, softer colours and tactile materials into the much larger concrete architecture of Postbyen.

September is also a nice moment to catch Copenhagen before everyone collectively moves indoors. If the weather cooperates, people are still using the waterfront and harbour, while cooler days give you a perfectly good excuse for another bakery, another design shop and a much longer dinner than originally planned. Copenhagen's harbour has designated central swimming areas, and getting into the water is very much part of local city life.

Our tip: Keep your swimwear in your bag. If you get one of those unexpectedly warm September afternoons, skip going back to the room and head for the harbour instead. Afterwards, walk towards the Meatpacking District for dinner.

We’d choose it for: design, food and a city break you’ll immediately want to make longer.

Villa Dorothéa

Lisbon, Portugal

And finally, somewhere almost no one has stayed yet.

Villa Dorothéa is one of Lisbon’s newest boutique hotels, having opened in 2026 in Lapa, the elegant residential neighbourhood above the Tagus. Five historic houses dating from 1878 have been restored into a 20-room boutique residence gathered around a sun-filled courtyard. There is also a rooftop terrace and The Secret gastrobar, but the real appeal is the sense of being tucked away behind a Lisbon façade rather than checking into a conventional city hotel.

Lapa is important here. You’re between the river, Santos and Estrela, surrounded by tiled houses, embassies and streets that become noticeably quieter once evening arrives. You can still walk towards Chiado and the centre, but you return somewhere that feels residential rather than touristic.

And September is a particularly easy time to be in Lisbon. Typical daytime temperatures remain around the high twenties, so dinners can still stretch outdoors and the city feels much closer to late summer than early autumn.

Our tip: Take tram 25 at least once. It runs through Lapa and is far less famous than tram 28, which is exactly the point. Or stay local altogether: walk through Jardim da Estrela, stop at the National Museum of Ancient Art and come back to Villa Dorothéa for a drink on the rooftop as the light disappears over the Tagus.

We’d choose it for: a Lisbon weekend that feels a little more like living there.

So, where would we actually go?

For sun and sea, Sharm Mykonos and Casas da Quinta de Cima would be our first choices. For a September city break, Volkshaus Basel and Locke Copenhagen make it very easy. Stockholm Stadshotell is the one we’d book if we were actively looking forward to autumn. And Villa Dorothéa might be the most tempting of all simply because it is so new.

That is really why we like September. You don’t have to pick a season yet.

You can have one last swim in Greece, breakfast beneath the Algarve sun, cycle around Copenhagen, disappear into a Basel museum, order a glass of wine in Lisbon or accept that Stockholm has officially made jackets appealing again.

Six hotels, six very different reasons not to stay home this September.