Tokelau: When to Go

The best time to visit Tokelau is April to October, when the rain eases off a little and the easterly trade winds bring some relief from the heat. Between November and January, ships are usually full of scholarship students and other Tokelauans living abroad, returning to spend Christmas with their families. December to March is cyclone season, when the trip from Samoa could be rough.

Weather

Sitting just south of the equator, Tokelau is truly tropical, with an average temperature of 28°C (80°F) and heavy but irregular rainfall - often up to 80mm (3.5in) per day. It's at the northern limit of the South Pacific cyclone zone, so tropical storms are rare but certainly not unknown - the most recent was Cyclone Percy in 2005. Global warming is a major concern for low-lying Tokelau: there's a very real risk that the atolls could be uninhabitable by the end of the 21st century.