Best (and worst) European Travel Destinations for Hay Fever Sufferers

Depending on the type of hay fever you have, there will be better months than others to visit that European city in your bucket list.

• If you have tree pollen allergies, avoiding travel during the spring months is advised, instead, organising your holidays from July to January will be your best option.
• If you’re especially sensitive to Grass Pollen, then early summer is the time to skip.
• Lastly, if Ragweed is your biggest allergy, early autumn will be a no-go.

Regardless of your allergy symptoms, there are some cities in the bucket list that nobody wants to miss.

Considering that the majority of British adults and families travel during the summer season, we’ve conducted research to analyse the best and worst cities to travel to this summer.

Autumn and winter typically provide some relief for most hay fever sufferers, so here are the best destinations to travel to during these months in particular.

Ireland

For those who prefer to travel closer to home and to a cooler destination, Dublin is the right place. It is also ideal for grass pollen or ragweed pollen sensitive Brits, as it has low concentration of both during the summer.

Home of beer and whiskey, there are tours available like this one to visit the Guinness Storehouse and a Whiskey distillery.

Portugal

If you only suffer from tree pollen allergies, Faro in June is for you.

Faro is the Algarve capital, a region located in the south coast of the country and the chosen summer destination by many. It is also the perfect base if you aim to visit the rest of the region and do some of Algarve’s most highlighted activities such as a tour on Ria Formosa or in The Benagil Cave, With direct flights from London, Manchester and Liverpool, Faro is an excellent destination if you’re looking for sun, delicious coastal food, spectacular beaches and picturesque small towns.

Alternatively, if you’re more interested in big cities and sightseeing as your main activity, Lisbon in July and August is also a great option.

While summer in Portugal can be rather hot, Lisbon's coastline climate and its surrounding beaches makes it a good option for those looking for “a bit of everything”. But it goes beyond that, as Lisbon also offers great music events and festivals during the summer.

If your main allergy issue is grass pollen, you should avoid travelling to Portugal between May and June.

Spain

Planning to go to the south of Spain? Seville in May is a great option for tree pollen allergy sufferers.

Seville is a wonderful city to visit during late spring, once the climate is warm but before the temperatures rise to over 40º C during the summer.

As a result of over 700 years of Arab invasion in Spain, particularly in the South, Seville features a unique architectural style with Arab influence that can be found in monuments such as the Alcazar and La Giralda you won’t want to miss.

If you suffer from Grass Pollen Allergies, then Ibiza during the summer is your safest choice. While worldwide known as a party island, Ibiza has so much more to offer than that.

Its crystalline water beaches and beautiful nature, as well as its many water and island sport activities makes the island an ideal destination for practically everyone. If you’re looking for adventure and beaches, we highly recommend you to stay away from the capital and explore the rest of Ibiza.

While coast cities tend to have a lower pollen count, especially due to humidity, there are multiple factors that will play against that such as inland winds, pollution, and other weather conditions.

If you choose a rainy destination to alleviate your symptoms, you might be making them worse. Humidity reduces the symptoms and light to moderate rain can help, but heavy rainfall can burst apart the pollen into smaller particles and increase the concentration of pollen.

Pollution, especially ozone, does have a negative impact on allergies as well. Air pollutants can change the composition of pollen, increasing the potency of pollen allergens and triggering stronger allergic reactions. On top of that, research shows that plants grown in polluted areas release more pollen for a longer period of time.

Therefore, theoretically, Barcelona should be a low pollen allergy city, but its proximity to a mountain range, high wind activity during the spring from inland—which brings more pollen to the city—,dryness and high pollution makes it an ordeal for tree pollen sufferers during the spring.

The weather and wind are unpredictable when planning the holidays ahead of time, but avoiding highly polluted cities during the peak time of your pollen allergy will help a lot.

Methodology

For this campaign, we’ve gathered the most in-demand destinations data from Google Travel Insights to see what are the most searched and booked destinations by Brits to go to in Europe and surroundings. To obtain the pollen count data in those 35 cities, we used a dataset generated by Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service for Europe between May 2023 and April 2024 with a deviation of 48h on surface level. To simplify the data, we’ve calculated the monthly median and classified them by pollen category (trees, grass or weed) and in best and worst cities to travel considering median monthly pollen count in grains/m3 of air.