When to Travel? Look to the Weather

So you have chosen to travel for an extended period. Great! Now when are you going to go and how are you going to arrange your itinerary? At this point you likely have some sort of idea on what you can afford in terms of countries and time you could spend traveling. I've already outlined my thought process on how I am making it affordable and saving money and my desired itinerary.

In addition to all this, I have a desired set off date, August 2010. Since most of what I want to do is overland, many of the countries are in the particular order just due to proximity since it saves money, however there are many things that need to be known when it comes to arriving in certain countries at certain times. Do you want to be in the Middle East during Ramadan? Are there any sights you want to see that are open a certain time of the year? Like the Sapporo Ice Festival in Japan during February or climbing Mount Fuji from May - September in Tokyo. These you can plan for and can be easily researched.

The Weather Will Get You

One large factor that should be focused on is the weather. Uncontrollable and seasonally predictable, the last thing you want is to plan the trip of a life time and arrive in India during monsoon season and be rained on everyday for a month. One way I have used to look at weather of all the countries is to use sites like weather.com and their historical temperature and rain accumulation for various cities.

The unfortunate side, especially for travelers to South East Asia, is that the coastal locales mean that monsoon season hits almost every country and at different times. Then, to make matters worse, when monsoon season is over you are still going to endure vicious heat due to the countries proximity to the equator. So in many cases it is very hard to avoid them all and some people may just want to go with it, but if you are worried about this, your plan should reflect some major weather patterns.

Avoid Heat Swells and Monsoons at All Costs

The big thing for me is avoiding that 100+ degree weather in India as well as their monsoon season which is very very hazardous to travelers. Depending on my speed the one thing that worries me is if I do decide to go to Patagonia in late April/early May I will be arriving at the beginning of winter when things get cooler. Luckily in their late fall season (March - May) the treacherous winds die down and make hiking a lot nicer. Considering I am used to 0° winters (it was -10°F or -23°C when I went to work yesterday) I think 40° is very tolerable especially for hiking. In Switzerland on Jungfrau it was in the high 20s and we had to take off layers from being too hot, although being at 13,000 ft will do that too while hiking. Just need to throw on a hoodie, some gloves, and a jacket and I would be set to do 6 hour hikes in El Calafate, the Glacier National Park and Torres Del Paine!

Now to make sure I can save the money to do that as well. It would work out nice as there used to be a time when the parks at El Chalten closed in April to September but apparently is now open all year although hostel rates might be higher since some close for seasonal renovations at this period.

The following post will contain a detailed outline of each countries weather patterns for the countries I am visiting as well as historical averages to give an idea of what are the worst months to visit.

Posted in: Initial,Planning,Weather