East Timor: When to Go

Go when the weather is best. East Timor doesn't yet have a tourist season, so there's no time of year when you're going to be overrun by crowds. So go during the May to November dry season when there's little rainfall and you're assured of good weather. By the end of the dry season, it can be rather dry and dusty. The December to April wet season can be very wet indeed, making travel difficult, particularly if you get off the main routes where unsealed roads can become impassable and unbridged rivers uncrossable. The end of the wet season, however, is the time for festivals.

Weather

East Timor has extreme wet and dry seasons. From May to November, the north coast receives virtually no rain, causing agricultural activity to all but cease. The cooler central mountains and south coast get an occasional shower during this time, and are greener as a result. Everything turns green when the wet comes, but the rains often turn to floods and the dry-season rivers of dust become torrents.

Dili is dry, with an average rainfall of around 1000mm (39in), most of it falling from December to March. Temperatures on the north coast reach 35°C (95°F) or more around October/November. In the lowland areas they're a slightly more comfortable 30°C (85°F), dropping to the low 20s (low 70s) overnight. In the mountains, day temperatures are still warm to hot but night temperatures are appreciably cooler, and downright chilly at high altitudes.