The journalDestinations
March, between the Gulf and Europe
March is an in-between month, and that is its value. The Gulf is still pleasant. Europe is waking. The stay can be two short chapters rather than one compromise.
2 min
March is rarely anyone’s favourite month, which is why it is useful. The Alpine season is thinning. The Mediterranean is not yet itself. Dubai is still comfortable in the evening. Paris and London are grey, and the restaurants are easier than they will be in June. A stay that tries to be a holiday in one place often feels unfinished. A stay that accepts two short chapters often feels exact.
The practical form is a week, or ten days, with a clean cut in the middle. Four nights where the work or the family already is. Four nights in a city that has been waiting since the autumn. The aircraft, if there is one, does a single reposition. The residence changes once. Nothing is attempted on the day of the flight except the flight.
What each city is for in March
Dubai in March is still a place to work and to be outside after six. It is also the month before Art Dubai, which in 2026 is published for 17–19 April. People begin to arrive early. That is a reason to book the residence before one feels the fair, not a reason to pretend the fair has started.
Paris in March is for walking, for a table that can still be had, and for meetings that do not want the theatre of fashion week. London is similar, with worse weather and a diary that is often more serious. Neither city needs a programme. They need a good address and two evenings that have been chosen rather than collected.
Keep the cut clean
The failure in March is the blurred middle: a night in an airport hotel because the flight was ‘flexible’, a day in Paris spent recovering, a return to Dubai that lands too late for the meeting that justified the trip. Write the cut. Which morning is the last in the Gulf. Which evening is the first in Europe. Who travels, and who stays.
A short, decided stay in March is worth more than a long, vague one in a prettier month. The light will improve. The diary will not get simpler.
