Where is hot in November, from the Red Sea to the Cape

November in Britain has little to recommend it beyond bonfires and the first mince pies. The days are short and wet, and Christmas is not quite near enough to look forward to. But it is one of the best months of the year in several places within reach, some of which are too hot to enjoy for much of the rest of the year. A week or two away in November feels like stealing back some of the summer.

Egypt, at its most comfortable

Egypt is the classic November destination, and with reason. The summer heat in the Nile Valley, which reaches well above forty degrees at Luxor and Aswan, has gone, and the days are warm, dry and sunny. It is the best time to see the temples, tombs and pyramids without having to retreat to the shade at midday. The Red Sea coast is still warm enough for swimming and snorkelling, and the coral reefs off Hurghada are within easy reach of the shore.

Explore Worldwide's Classic Egypt with Nile Cruise and Red Sea Extension, twelve nights, combines the lot. It starts with Cairo, the pyramids of Giza and the older step pyramid at Saqqara. It then cruises the Nile between Aswan and Luxor, stopping at the temples of Kom Ombo and Edfu, and ends with time on the coast at Hurghada.

Saqqara is worth singling out. Its step pyramid, built for the pharaoh Djoser in the twenty-seventh century BC, is the oldest of the pyramids and among the oldest large stone buildings in the world, the prototype from which the smooth-sided pyramids at Giza developed. Further south, the temple of Horus at Edfu, built in the Ptolemaic period, is the best-preserved temple in Egypt, roofed and walled almost as it was. Kom Ombo is unusual for being a double temple, with two sanctuaries side by side, one for the crocodile god Sobek and one for the falcon-headed Horus the Elder.

South Africa, in late spring

In the southern hemisphere, November is late spring turning into summer. Cape Town and the Winelands are warm and green, and the long beaches along the Garden Route are coming into their season. Kruger National Park, in the north-east, is hot, and the summer rains are starting, so the bush turns green. Game is a little harder to spot in thicker vegetation than in the dry winter months. On the other hand, it is the season when many antelope give birth, and the young animals are everywhere.

Explore Worldwide's South Africa's Garden Route and Kruger, thirteen nights, covers both halves of the country. It begins in Johannesburg, with Soweto, and goes on to Kruger and Hazyview. Then it moves south to the Garden Route, from Port Elizabeth through Tsitsikamma National Park and Storms River to Knysna, then to Hermanus, Betty's Bay, Stellenbosch and Cape Town. Hermanus is famous for whales watched from the cliffs, and the season for southern right whales there generally runs into November, so there is still a chance of a sighting.

Kruger itself is vast, roughly the size of Wales, stretching along the Mozambique border. It is home to all of the so-called Big Five (lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino) as well as hundreds of species of birds, many of which are at their most colourful in the breeding season of the southern summer.

The Maldives and the Caribbean

The Maldives are moving into their dry season in November, which brings calm seas and clear water, though the odd shower is still possible. G Adventures' Maldives Dhoni Explorer, six nights, sails from Malé among the local islands of the Vaavu atoll, including Fulidhoo and Felidhoo. It runs from October to December.

In the Caribbean, the hurricane season officially ends on 30 November, and the islands are beginning their dry season. Ambassador's Tropical Treasures flies from Manchester to Bridgetown, Barbados, for a fourteen-night cruise in November. Its ports include Bonaire, Curaçao and Aruba, Guadeloupe, Dominica, St Vincent, Martinique, St Lucia, St Kitts, the British Virgin Islands and Antigua. For anyone who likes a choice of beaches and a different island most mornings, it is a good way to spend the gloomiest weeks of the British year.

Whichever way you go, there is a pleasure in November travel that the summer can't match: you leave in the dark and the rain, and step off the plane into warm sunshine.