Winter sun for under €100 return: where it is really warm, with real fares and temperatures

In short

• Real winter warmth, within reach, means the Canaries, Morocco and Egypt. Malta, Cyprus and southern Spain are mild and sunny, but not swimsuit weather.
• The cheapest warm destinations in our data: Marrakech and Malta from €29.98, Málaga and Alicante from €29.98, Seville from €30.98, Agadir from €35.98 return.
• From the UK and Ireland we saw London Stansted → Agadir at €35.98, Dublin → Alicante at €44.98 and Dublin → Lanzarote at €48.98, return, in December.
• Morocco is the best sun for the money, with one trap: Marrakech nights are cold, around 5–6 °C.
• The weeks to aim for: the first half of December, at the median 8% below the usual fare on the same route. January is about average; departures between Christmas Day and 6 January are the dearest, 32% above.

Fares FlyDown read directly from the airlines between late September and 8 October 2026, for departures from December to February: return, per person, small cabin bag only. Most of them start in continental Europe, so we show where each fare left from. Temperatures are rounded December climate averages; flight times are approximate, direct from London.

First, the right question: warm enough for what?

In winter "somewhere warm" means three different things, and mixing them up is the fastest way to come home disappointed:

• Beach and swimming: you need at least 21–22 °C in the day and sea above 19 °C. Near Europe you only get that in the Canaries and on the Red Sea.
• A city in the sun, T-shirt at lunchtime: 17–20 °C, clear skies, longer days. That is southern Spain, Malta, Cyprus, Marrakech, Madeira.
• Escaping the grey: even 15 °C and sunshine instead of 5 °C and drizzle changes a weekend. Athens, Valencia and Palma count here.

There is also a difference you feel but will not find in a table: daylight. In late December the Canaries get around 10 hours 40 minutes of daylight; London gets under 8, Edinburgh about 7. That is nearly three extra hours of daylight compared with London, and over three and a half compared with Edinburgh.

The destinations, with the fares we saw

"From" is the lowest return fare we found to that destination, on international routes, and the city it left from; "typical fare" is the median across the different departure cities. The gap between the two columns tells you how much your departure airport matters: for Málaga the cheapest flight was from Milan at €29.98, but the median across all departure cities was almost twice that. Our December readings from UK and Irish airports are still few, which is why most "from" cities are on the continent.

What the rankings don't tell you

• Marrakech is not on the coast. It is the cheapest warm destination, but it is inland: sunshine and 19 °C at noon, 5–6 °C in the evening. For the sea in Morocco, go to Agadir, which from London was one of the cheapest fares in this whole guide.
• Malta in winter is a city break, not a beach. The sun is almost always out, and so is the wind. Perfect for a long weekend at €30–40, less so for a tan.
• The Canaries are the safest warmth, and they cost more for a reason. The flight is long (four hours or more from the UK) and everyone wants it in winter: cheap seats appear and vanish quickly. Under €100 is possible, but you take it when it shows up.
• Egypt is the warmest, and the dearest on this list. In Sharm and Hurghada you can swim in January. Direct low-cost flights are few, and fares start at around €80–100.
• Morocco and Egypt are outside Europe. Check entry requirements before you book (Egypt, for example, requires a visa for UK and Irish citizens), and look at the transfer: Agadir airport is about 25 km from the seafront.

When to go to pay less

We compared the same route, with the same airline, across the different parts of the winter, to the destinations in this guide:

• The first half of December is the best window: few people travel before the holidays, and many of the €30 fares in this guide are from those days, including Stansted → Agadir on 4–7 December.
• January is about average, with the advantage of free dates: no festivities, no school holidays.
• Avoid, if you can, flying out between Christmas Day and 6 January, when the same routes cost about a third more than usual (see our guide to Christmas flights), and to a lesser extent February. Week by week, the week of 15 February (half term in most of England) was 11% above the route's usual January–February fare, across 23 routes, and the week of 22 February 34% above, across 30, when several continental countries have winter holidays.

These comparisons are on routes that mostly start in continental Europe: we do not yet read enough UK and Irish departures to measure them separately, so they cannot show what half term does to fares from the UK.

Three example trips, with real fares

• Morocco by the ocean, from London: Stansted → Agadir, 4–7 December, €35.98 return with Ryanair. Three nights at about 21 °C, by the sea.
• The Canaries from Ireland: Dublin → Lanzarote, 12–17 December, €48.98 return. Five days of sun a week before the Christmas rush.
• Proper heat in January: Rome → Sharm el-Sheikh, 14–18 January, €80.88 with Wizz Air. Sea at about 23 °C while much of Europe is cold and grey.

The easy way: get an alert

For winter sun it pays to leave the destination open: tell FlyDown where you fly from, how much you want to spend and which weeks, and it checks the airlines every few hours and writes to you when it finds the Canaries, Morocco, Malta or Cyprus under your price, with the price history so you can tell whether it is really a deal.