Best Spring Blossoms Around the World

With March’s arrival, we can feel the short dark days of winter drawing to a close. At ToursByLocals headquarters in Vancouver, purple crocuses and snowdrops are poking out of the ground, and any day now our first frothy cherry blossoms will herald the spring season’s arrival.

To celebrate the end of what’s felt like a particularly long, cold and dark winter, we’re heralding the arrival of blossoms around the world with a round-up of some of our favourite spring flower destinations!

Check out the tours on offer and plan a dream spring trip for 2022! And in the meantime, we’ve also snuck a couple virtual tours on the list, so you can get a sneak peak of what’s in store for you.

Best Spring Blossoms Around the World

Close to home – for us! – is the world famous Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island. This is a must-see for anyone visiting the city of Victoria, whether on a port call or part of a larger trip in British Columbia. Victoria’s temperate climate make this place a lush green showstopper any time of year, and spring gets an early start with daffodils, tulips and cherry blossoms arriving this month.

Enjoy beautiful Victoria, BC in springtime and Tour Butchart Gardens.In a typical year, our bookings in Japan are at their highest in spring, as “hanami” fever takes over, and people from all over the globe visit Japan to wander under canopies of frothy pink cherry blossoms. Our guides in all cities delight in taking visitors to the best places in their cities to soak in the cherry blossom splendor. When you can go in person: Tour Kyoto’s Cherry Blossoms.

Until then, our guide Gulay is offering the chance to witness the blooms virtually, on her Tokyo cherry blossom tour: Tour Tokyo's Cherry Blossoms, virtually!We associate spring season in Japan with the explosion of cherry blossoms, but this isn’t the only bloom on display. Delicate pale blue, purple and white wisteria and the bold pink moss phlox are on display in Japan’s Fuji No Hana and Shibazakura flower parks, near Tokyo. These are the county's most popular parks in April and May. Eelise, your guide here, says: “Walking into the Wisteria tunnel is like walking into heaven. The smell of the flowers is so soothing and calming.”

Get ready for an abundance of colour when you Tour Tokyo's Flower Gardens.If you’re American and looking for spring blossoms a bit closer to home, there’s nowhere better than Washington, DC. Over a century ago, Tokyo gifted the Capitol with over 3000 flowering cherry trees; today they bloom each spring along the National Mall, where visitors and residents alike come out to snap photos of the beautiful sight.

Tour the cherry blossoms in Washington, DC.Japan isn’t the only Asian country with ties to cherry blossoms: Jinhae, under an hour from Busan, South Korea has become famous for its annual cherry blossom festival, running from mid-February through April. Our guide Frank invites you to experience springtime in Korea: “Have you ever dreamed of walking on a flowery carpet under a shower of blossoms? Then, we invite you to the April festivities in Korea. This is the month when the country is covered in white cherry blossom petals, its mountains are ablaze with yellow forsythias, and villages are blooming with sansuyu flowers.”

How can we resist? Take a Cherry Blossom Tour in Jinhae, South Korea.Of course there’s more to spring than cherry blossoms! April is the month the Dutch countryside comes to life with swaths of brilliantly coloured tulips. This year the famed Keukenhof Gardens opens on March 20, and our guides are available to take you there either in person or on your own private virtual tour!

If you're in the Netherlands, take a drive past tulips fields in the Dutch Countryside, then Tour Keukenhof Garden.

Or if you're on the wrong side of the border...hire a Dutch guide who's there on the ground, and Tour Keukenhof Gardens virtually!Finally, shifting towards the very end of spring, we have the heavenly sight of misty fields of purple lavender blooming in Provence, France. And of course sight is only half of it – the scent of lavender’s perfume is unmistakable. With your guide Nathalie, you will “follow the country roads to the "capital" of Lavender, or what we call here “the Blue Gold of Provence”: the village of Sault. Here you can even taste a lavender ice cream!”

Soak in the sun, scents and purple vistas when you Tour Lavender fields in Provence.