There is a category of destinations defined by when they are rather than what they are. St. Tropez in November is a Provençal village with a port and a square. In August, during the weeks around the 15th, it becomes the center of a social world that has been building toward that moment since the previous September. Mykonos closes for the winter and reopens each June to a crowd that has been planning its return since the last season ended. Ibiza activates for four months and quiets entirely for eight.
These places are defined not only by their physical qualities but by a convergence — of people, of calendar, of expectation — that arrives once a year and is, for its duration, what the destination actually is. To be there at that moment is the point. To arrive at any other time is to see what remains when the convergence has passed.
The season is not a detail. It is the destination.