A winter trip to Helsinki? Why not?

The other day, I saw a couple on the Pont des Arts, a pedestrian bridge over the Seine that Paris picnickers and sunbathers favor in July. But it was December, and the pair were huddled together, wrapped in long winter coats. She had to take off a glove to turn the pages of a guidebook, exposing her pale hand to the cold. Then the wind snatched his scarf and started to run with it.

I silently wished them bon courage, because I know what it’s like to be a tourist in the off-season, whether it’s Europe in winter or the Caribbean in summer. The prices may be right, but the elements often are against you. Although twice as many Americans travel to Europe in July as in February, according to Department of Commerce statistics, it makes monetary sense to buck the trend, especially now, with the dollar tanking.

Tama Taylor Holve, owner of Willett Travel in Studio City, isn’t keen on traveling out of season solely to economize. “If you don’t enjoy cold weather, no amount of money saved will make it a great experience,” she told me by e-mail. “For budget travelers who would picnic in the park [the off-season means] grabbing a bite in a pub or cafe.

“Folks who would have walked the city now pay for bus tours or are relegated to the subway, where they don’t see much. Because of bad weather, they might spend more time in their hotel, and that small budget room becomes much smaller.”

Budget travel guru Rick Steves, author of “Europe Through the Back Door,” went to Norway in December and found it “pretty bleak.”

“I took pictures in complete darkness in the center of Oslo at 3:30 in the afternoon,” he said.

But Steves said he could make a case for Paris being at its best in winter. “People are in their local stride,” he said. “Life goes on without the incessant ringing of cash registers.”

Europe in winter has other unique advantages, which Holve thinks are better reasons for off-season travel than saving money: smaller crowds at attractions; undivided attention from hotel and airline personnel; concerts, theater, dance, opera. When it’s low season for tourists in Europe, it’s high season for the performing arts.

In January 2003, subzero temperatures in St. Petersburg, Russia, brought tears to my eyes that froze on my lashes. But I wouldn’t exchange that white winter week, hearing Tchaikovsky at the Philharmonia and seeing ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre, for all the balmy beaches of Hawaii.

I’ve always been seduced when ads start appearing for cut-rate winter package deals to Europe that include airfare and accommodations. Every year from 1995 to 1998, I tried a different package offered by one airline or another, gambling that low season prices would offset the discomforts and inconveniences of inclement weather.

The first was a magnificent trip to Venice, Italy, with Alitalia for less than $800, consisting of round-trip airfare from New York, airport transfers, five nights in a three-star hotel, breakfasts, single supplement, tax and service. My guidebook predicted rain and cold, but when I arrived, I was rewarded with a warm spell and clear blue skies. It made the visit so magical that I haven’t had the courage to return for fear of spoiling the memory.

The next year, I spent a winter weekend in Brussels for $599 on a package from now-defunct Sabena Airlines. In 1997, it was Madrid for four nights with Iberia for $735 and Helsinki in 1998, flying Finnair from New York and staying three nights at the luxurious Hotel Inter-Continental for $702.

When I arrived in Finland that February, it was wet and unseasonably warm. But then there was a cold snap, coating the sidewalks with sheets of ice and making the hotel’s sauna the best spot in town. I bundled up but still couldn’t bear to sit in the park by wide, flat, frigid Toolo Bay. One afternoon, I sought refuge in a movie theater that was showing the animated “Anastasia,” dubbed in Finnish. At night, downtown was largely deserted, giving it an eerie, evacuated air.

Some years later, I went back to Helsinki, this time in spring. My memories of the winter-locked city are needle sharp, but I’ve forgotten most of what I did there when I could go without a coat and the birch trees were greening.

I used to think that every destination had its own optimum tourist season: April in Paris and autumn in New York, as the songs say. But weather is unpredictable and off-season travel sometimes has serendipitous benefits. In Rome one wretchedly hot August, I found an air-conditioned trattoria where I stretched out lunch as long as I could. The waiter saw how reluctant I was to go back out into the oven and gave me a free glass of limoncello at the end of the meal, an anesthetizing act of kindness I’ve never forgotten.

I’ve also found that places people generally avoid in winter, such as Yellowstone National Park, are singularly beautiful when you can see your breath and the snow flies. It could be that, from one season to the next, every place is different and, thus, worth visiting again.

On the Right Bank or in Wyoming, the key to successful winter sightseeing, Steves said, is dressing warmly -- a long coat, high boots, hat, scarf, gloves. “It isn’t like dashing from the car to the mall,” he said. “You want to be able to stay outside for long stretches of time.”

That and a little attitude adjustment can make off-season travel rewarding. Instead of fighting the weather, embrace it. Walk through London’s Hyde Park in a downpour. Sweat freely in the Mojave Desert in August. (I’m told it cleans out the pores.) Pray for snow in Paris, so you can build a snowman in Luxembourg Garden. The locals will look askance, but that’s all right. To travel in any weather, you have to be a little nuts.

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Susan Spano also writes “Postcards From Paris,” which can be read at www.latimes.com/susanspano.