When: Mid-April Best for: New product launches, brand-scale installations Difficulty: Demanding. Book accommodation by January Salone is the industry's main event, and Milan Design Week is what happens around it – the Fuorisalone, spilling into courtyards, palazzi and disused garages across the city. The fair itself, held at Fiera Milano, is vast enough to require a plan of attack; most people pick two or three halls and accept they'll miss the rest. The real discoveries tend to be off-site, in districts like Brera and Tortona, where smaller studios take over spaces for a week and never book them again. Go hungry – the aperitivo is part of the itinerary, not an afterthought.

When: Early December, alongside Art Basel Miami Beach Best for: Collectible design, limited editions, serious buyers Difficulty: Straightforward, but expect crowds and prices to match Design Miami is where furniture behaves like art, priced accordingly. Galleries bring one-off pieces and small editions from names like Ron Arad and the Campana Brothers, shown under a single tent a short walk from the main Art Basel fair. It rewards people who already know what they're looking at, but the browsing is generous even for those who don't. The week around it in Miami turns into an unofficial festival of pop-ups and parties, most of them better than the fair itself.

When: Mid-September Best for: A citywide spread, emerging designers Difficulty: Easy. No single ticket required London doesn't concentrate its design week into one hall – it spreads it across the city, from the Design Museum to Somerset House to the Southbank Centre, with more than a dozen official districts in between. 100% Design and the London Design Fair at Old Truman Brewery carry the trade weight, but the Design Museum's own programme and the smaller studio open-houses in Clerkenwell are where the week earns its reputation. It's the easiest of the major fairs to do without a plan – wander, and something will be on.

When: January and September Best for: Interiors, tableware, textiles, trend forecasting Difficulty: Moderate. Trade-focused, but public days exist Maison&Objet runs twice a year at Paris Nord Villepinte, some way out of the city, and it shows in the scale – halls sorted by category, a trend forum that sets the tone for the season ahead, and enough tableware to furnish several hotels. It's less about spectacle than volume: if a homeware brand matters, it's usually here. Pair it with a day in the Marais for the smaller, better-edited version of the same story.

When: Early February Best for: Scandinavian furniture and lighting, considered design Difficulty: Easy. Compact and well organised Stockholm's fair is smaller and colder, in every sense, than its southern European counterparts, and it's better organised for it. The focus stays on furniture and lighting, with a clarity of edit that Milan rarely manages – expect fewer halls, more daylight between stands, and a Nordic restraint that extends to the after-parties. February isn't the obvious time to visit Sweden, but the fair makes the case for itself.

When: PAD London in early October, PAD Paris in early April Best for: 20th-century and contemporary collectible design Difficulty: Straightforward. Ticketed, single-site PAD is smaller and more focused than Design Miami – a single marquee, dealers rather than brands, and a mix of vintage and contemporary pieces that rewards slow looking. The London edition sits in Berkeley Square; Paris takes over the Tuileries. Either is manageable in an afternoon, which makes it the fair to add onto a trip built around something else.