Where to go in April? Quieter places in Europe and Japan

How we picked the quieter places

For each country and prefecture, we took its 2025 nights at tourist accommodation and worked out what share fell in April. If a place's visitors were spread evenly, each month would carry 8.3% of its year. A share below that means April was quieter than that place's average month; above it, busier.¹²

This compares each place with itself, not places with each other: a low share is a quiet month for that place. For how each year looks in full, open the country or prefecture page.

Europe in April: all 35 countries, quietest share first

In 30 of the 35 countries, April carried less than an average month's share (8.3%) of 2025's tourist nights.¹

Where was April the quietest month of the year?

In 2025, April was the quietest month in one European country and five Japanese prefectures.¹²

• Finland (Europe): 6.3% of the year's nights
• Nagano (Japan): 6.2% of the year's nights
• Gunma (Japan): 7.1% of the year's nights
• Yamagata (Japan): 6.8% of the year's nights
• Hokkaido (Japan): 5.6% of the year's nights
• Niigata (Japan): 6.6% of the year's nights

Where was April the busiest month?

In 2025, April was not the busiest month in any of our 35 European countries or 47 Japanese prefectures.¹²

Japan in April: every prefecture

Japan's figures come from a sample survey, and the gaps between prefectures are often smaller than its sampling error, so we list the prefectures alphabetically rather than ranking them.³

What is the weather like in April?

Of the 28 European capitals we have weather for, Nicosia has the highest average high in April (24.7 °C) and Reykjavik the lowest (6.9 °C), averaged over 1991–2020.⁴ We do not yet publish weather for Albania, Greece, Denmark, Portugal, Switzerland, Lithuania and Malta.

Thirty-year averages from one weather station per country or prefecture: the same station its page uses. They describe a typical year at that station, not a forecast, and weather varies within every country. A rainy day is one with at least 1 mm of rain.

How warm is the sea in April?

Average sea surface temperature in April, 1991–2020, at the open-sea point nearest each weather station, where there is one within 30 km: 8 European capitals and 29 Japanese prefectures. It is open sea, not a beach reading.⁹ Every month, and how we chose the points.

Which public holidays fall in April 2026 and 2027?

These are the national holiday lists we publish for 33 European countries and Japan, copied from each country's page. Regional holidays, such as those of Germany's states or Spain's regions, are on the country pages. Spain's 2027 list and some 2027 dates elsewhere are not published yet. What each list covers differs; see the notes for each country.⁵⁶

April 2026

April 2027

See every month in the holiday calendar, with school holidays too.

Blossom, autumn leaves and typhoons in Japan in April

Cherry trees usually start to bloom in April at the JMA stations for 12 prefectures: Fukui (around 1 April), Shiga (around 1 April), Ishikawa (around 3 April), Toyama (around 3 April), Fukushima (around 7 April), Miyagi (around 8 April), Niigata (around 8 April), Nagano (around 11 April), Yamagata (around 13 April), Akita (around 17 April), Iwate (around 18 April) and Aomori (around 22 April).⁷

They usually reach full bloom in April in 42 prefectures: Kanagawa (around 1 April), Kumamoto (around 1 April), Aichi (around 2 April), Gifu (around 2 April), Miyazaki (around 2 April), Nagasaki (around 2 April), Saga (around 2 April), Shizuoka (around 2 April), Yamanashi (around 2 April), Ehime (around 3 April), Hiroshima (around 3 April), Mie (around 3 April), Saitama (around 3 April), Wakayama (around 3 April), Kagawa (around 4 April), Kyoto (around 4 April), Nara (around 4 April), Oita (around 4 April), Okayama (around 4 April), Osaka (around 4 April), Tokushima (around 4 April), Yamaguchi (around 4 April), Gunma (around 5 April), Hyogo (around 5 April), Kagoshima (around 5 April), Shimane (around 5 April), Tottori (around 5 April), Chiba (around 6 April), Ibaraki (around 6 April), Tochigi (around 6 April), Fukui (around 7 April), Ishikawa (around 8 April), Shiga (around 8 April), Toyama (around 8 April), Fukushima (around 11 April), Miyagi (around 13 April), Niigata (around 13 April), Nagano (around 16 April), Yamagata (around 18 April), Akita (around 22 April), Iwate (around 24 April) and Aomori (around 26 April).⁷

Over 1991–2020, an average of 0.2 typhoons came within 300 km of a JMA weather station somewhere in Japan in April.⁸ Typhoons by region and month.

These are the Japan Meteorological Agency's 1991–2020 averages at one station per prefecture; each year's dates differ. See cherry blossom dates and autumn leaf dates for every prefecture.

What these figures cannot tell you

• A share of each place's own year, not a crowd count. A low share means that month was quiet for that place. It does not mean the place had fewer visitors than somewhere else, and a small country's busy month can still be far quieter than a big country's quiet one.
• Nights, not queues. A national or prefecture total cannot show crowding at one sight, beach or old town. Day trips do not count at all, because nobody stays the night.
• One year. These are 2025 figures. Another year can differ, for example when Easter moves between March and April.
• Japan's figures are a sample survey. The gaps between neighbouring prefectures are often smaller than the survey's sampling error, so we do not rank prefectures against each other.
• No causes. Weather and holidays sit next to the tourism figures here, but the figures do not show that either makes a month busier or quieter, so we do not say they do.
• We have not been to these places and make no judgement about which is better to visit.

Other months: January · February · March · May · June · July · August · September · October · November · December. Or open April in Explore.