The Best Time to Visit Is Also the Rainiest Month in 1 in 7 of the World’s Top Destinations

Of 463 top tourist destinations around the world that have a rainy season, 66, about 1 in 7, are best visited in their rainiest month of the year. Nearly half of those are summer-storm cities in Europe and North America: in Prague, Toronto and Chicago the rainiest month is a summer month, and it still stays dry three days out of four. Where the rainy season is a true monsoon, the opposite holds: of the 65 destinations whose rainiest month brings rain on half of its days or more, the best time to visit avoids that month in 64.

We compared two things every ChampionTraveler Best Time to Visit page shows: the chance of rain in each month and the months the page recommends. Across all 463 destinations, the recommended months see rain on 14% of days at the median, against 23% for the rest of the year. How the study was built is in the methodology.

Summer storms: when the rainiest month is still the best

30 of the 66 destinations that are best visited in their rainiest month have that month in June, July or August. Most are inland cities of central and eastern Europe and North America (Prague, Moscow, St Petersburg, Toronto, Budapest, Krakow, Warsaw, Chicago), where summer rain comes as short afternoon thunderstorms rather than days of drizzle. At the median their rainiest month brings rain on 26% of days, so roughly three days in four stay dry, and summer is still the warmest and longest-daylight time to go.

Prague’s rainiest month is June, with rain on 25% of days, and it sits inside the recommended window (May-Sep). Bangkok’s rainiest month is September, with rain on 57% of days, and its recommended months (Dec-Mar) avoid the whole rainy season.

Region by region

Europe is where the best time and the rainiest month most often coincide (Southern Europe 14 of 63, Northern Europe 5 of 28, Western Europe 5 of 20, Eastern Europe 8 of 11). North America follows with 15 of 91. In South and Southeast Asia it almost never happens: 2 of 111 destinations, because the monsoon brings rain on most days of the wet months and the recommended windows sit in the dry season.

Where the monsoon decides

65 of the destinations have a rainiest month with rain on half of its days or more (Calangute, India, July at 78%; Cochin, India, July at 73%; Kanazawa, Japan, December at 73%; Mumbai, India, July at 72%; Patong, Thailand, September at 71%). The recommended months avoid that month in 64 of them. For these places the rainy season is the main thing to plan around; for most of the rest, temperature and crowds weigh as much as rain. One of the 65 is not a rain story: in Kutchan, the town at Japan’s Niseko ski resorts, January’s 72% is snow.

Every destination

All 463 destinations in the study, sortable and searchable. The chance of rain is the share of days with at least 0.1 inch of rain or melted snow in that month; each name links to the destination’s full month-by-month page.

Questions

Is it worth traveling during the rainy season?

Often, where the rain comes as short summer storms. In 66 of 463 top destinations the best time to visit includes the rainiest month, and in most of those that month still stays dry about three days in four. Where the rainiest month brings rain on half its days or more, as in a monsoon, the best time avoids it in 64 of 65 destinations.

Which destinations are best visited in their rainiest month?

Mostly inland cities of central and eastern Europe and North America whose rainiest month is in summer, such as Prague, Moscow, Warsaw, Toronto and Chicago. The full list is in the table above.

How does ChampionTraveler measure the chance of rain?

As the share of days in each month with at least 0.1 inch (2.54 mm) of rain or melted snow, from long-term NOAA weather station records; where a station's record was incomplete, from a nearby complete NOAA station or from NASA POWER data calibrated to station records.

What is the difference between the rainy season and the rainiest month?

The rainiest month is the single month with the highest chance of rain. A rainy season is a run of wet months; in monsoon climates it lasts four to six months and rain falls on most days, while in many temperate cities the rainiest month is only a few points wetter than the rest of the year.

Methodology

Destinations. ChampionTraveler Best Time to Visit pages for cities, towns, islands and resort areas, ranked by the number of hotels listed on Expedia; the 500 with the most hotels, counting places that share one weather record once (the one with the most hotels). Countries, states and regions are left out because one weather record cannot stand for them, and parks and attractions because their hotel counts are the nearby city’s. Of the 500, 24 have no real rainy season (their rainiest month is within 10 points of their driest) and 13 recommend 10 or more months of the year; both groups are left out of the counts, which leaves 463.

Rain. The chance of rain each page shows: the share of days in each calendar month with at least 0.1 inch (2.54 mm) of rain or melted snow, as long-term averages of NOAA weather station records. Where a station’s record had gaps, the page uses a nearby complete NOAA GHCN-Daily station (2005-2024) or NASA POWER data calibrated to station records. The rainiest month is the month with the highest chance; when months tie, a destination counts as best visited in its rainiest month only if every tied month is recommended. Because the measure counts snow as well as rain, in 9 of the 463 destinations the rainiest month averages at or below freezing on its page (among them Kutchan and Sapporo in Japan, and Montreal), and much of what is counted there falls as snow. None of them is among the destinations best visited in their rainiest month.

Recommended months. The months each Best Time to Visit page highlights as the best time to go, which weigh temperature, rain and crowds. Regions are ChampionTraveler’s.

Data as of 2026-11-09. Journalists and researchers who need a cut for a particular destination, country or region can ask through the form on our About page; we send it with a request for a credit link.

Cite or embed this study

ChampionTraveler, "The Best Time to Visit Is Also the Rainiest Month in 1 in 7 of the World's Top Destinations," November 2026. https://championtraveler.com/news/rainiest-month-best-time-to-visit/

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