Those without A/C, what are your tips to stay cool during the summer?

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Around here, Portugal, were every Summer the temperature exceeds 40 C for at least some days in August, we have outside rollup shades on every window, so one of the tricks is to keep the shades down and and the windows closed during the hottest and sunniest parts of the day, at the very least the afternoon.
Then at night you open the windows and let the cooler night air in (even better if you do it early morning, around sunrise, which is the coolest time of the day).
Note that this doesn't work well with curtains or internal shades, because with those any conversion of light into heat when the light heats the shades/curtains (as they're not mirrors and don't reflect all light back) happens inside the house and thus that heat gets trapped indoors.
- I have internal curtains and blinds and this actually still works well, at least better than keeping them open. Maybe it would work better with externals but this is still worth doing if all you have is internal
  
  Well, the more light you reflect out the better (I would expect that, for example, darker color curtains would be a problem) and ideally you want that whatever light does get converted into heat does so outside.
  As it so happens, were I live the heat has been a problem in the Summer since well before AC was invented, so roll-up external shades are standard for all houses and apartments and that stuff definitely works if used as I described it.
  
  Agreed. We do the same. It would work better externally but price is exorbitant here for such options. We also do all the same as OP and it works really well. Especially opening early morning at dawn to cool everything down.

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