7 3-Day Weekend Destinations To Help You Beat The Heat (Slideshow)

You're probably familiar with Breckinridge, Colorado, as a skier's paradise, but it's also a great place to cool off in the summer — likely only feasible if you can easily fly into Denver. Upon landing you'll have to rent a car or take a shuttle for the two-hour drive to the town at the base of the Rocky Mountains' Tenmile Range. With the time change, if you catch an early morning flight from the east, you can still get a full first day to explore the great outdoors and hike, bike, four-wheel, horseback ride, and rock climb to your heart's content. There are five rivers nearby, so fly fishing, whitewater rafting, and other aquatic activities are popular as well. Thoughts of crippling summer heat may have you wanting to stay indoors, but in Breckenridge the highest average highs are only about 75 degrees. If you're looking to spoil yourself as much as possible in a limited amount of time, consider staying at the upscale Grand Lodge on Peak 7.

Both the temperatures and humidity of Florida summers can occasionally get pretty brutal, so walking around a Disney Park under the blazing sun isn't the best idea... unless of course it's a water park! Walt Disney World in Orlando has two such parks to choose from, Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon, only 12 miles from each other, and with a three-day weekend you can easily devote a day to each. One ticket ($60 for a single day) can get you into both parks, with the ability to come and go at each as you please. Race against your travel companions (or show up total strangers) on Blizzard Beach's toboggan racers, or gather your courage to take the Summit Plummet plunge down a 120-foot-tall, 360-foot-long water slide. At Typhoon Lagoon, jump into the cool, 68-degree pool and swim alongside tropical fish, stingrays, and sharks — or take a surf lesson. If you can manage to stand up, you'll feel cool and look cool too.

The summertime can turn big cities into enormous ovens, but folks in East Coast cities like Atlanta, Baltimore, Charlotte, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, and Washington (and even Chicago in the Midwest) can hop on daily flights up to Portland, Maine, where the idea of a hot day is any one where the temperature reaches 80 — a rather rare occurrence. Portland is an easily walkable city with water views everywhere you look, numerous uncrowded beaches within a short drive, all kinds of ferries and cruises around the harbor, a thriving restaurant scene, and more breweries per capita than almost any other city in America. Apparently the lobster is pretty good too.

Going as far south in California as possible in order to beat the heat seems counterintuitive, but San Diego really does have perfect weather all year long. Tourists could potentially pick a weekend in the hottest part of summer and never even see the mercury rise to 80 degrees. As for what to do, the options are endless. We recently recommended the Coronado Golf Course for a very beautiful and very inexpensive round on the links; walking around the wonderful San Diego Zoo in the sun is still absolutely doable; Action Sports Rentals has seven locations around the city offering all kinds of water activities (paddleboats, stand-up paddleboards, kayaks, jet skis, and even sunset cruises); and I'd personally recommend a trip to the Maritime Museum for a three-hour harbor and ocean voyage on one of its tall ship replicas.

With average summer highs in the low-to-mid 70s and relatively low humidity, Seattle is a refreshing urban getaway from hotter and stickier cities in the central and western parts of the U.S. Seafair offers all kinds of outdoor events, festivals, and activities all summer long, from the Pirates Landing in late June (shopping, eating, and dancing), to the music and parade of Torchlight Night in late July, to August's Fleet Week and Maritime Celebration. There's also biking and boating, or you can leave the sports to others and catch a Mariners game at beautiful Safeco Field. Of course, we'd be remiss not mention a couple of the city's amazing food halls, like Melrose Market and the winner of the best food hall in America distinction for the past two years (2015 and 2016): Pike Place Market.

The first of two entries from our neighbors to the north (whoops, spoilers!), Toronto offers temperatures that rarely go above 80, and if you happen to arrive in the midst of a freak heat wave (or it gets a bit too muggy), Lake Ontario is right there to cool you down with beaches and the scenic Toronto Islands. Easily accessible from airports across the East and Midwest, the city boasts such tourist attractions as the the CN Tower (which is located next to the Rogers Centre, home of the Blue Jays), the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Toronto Zoo, the Botanical Gardens, and two fantastic museums: the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Royal Ontario Museum. Overall, the city is very safe and very walkable, so exploring the sights, bars, and restaurants is always a solid strategy for experiencing all Toronto has to offer.

Vancouver: It's like Seattle, but more Canadian. It's also a few degrees cooler on average. Seriously though, Vancouver has a lot of unique offerings for tourists, like world-renowned Stanley Park (and its scenic mountain, water, forest, and city views), the educational (and air-conditioned) Vancouver Aquarium, the markets and shops of Granville Island, and walking, jogging, biking, or rollerblading along the 19-mile-long Seawall. This seaside city also has a number of beaches, the most popular being Kitsilano, Jericho, and Spanish Banks. With summer highs in the low 70s, there's no reason to seek shelter — the climate, like your stereotypical Canadian, is quite friendly.