Digital Nomad Calendar: Where to Be Each Month of the Year, From Chiang Mai to Bali

Where should you be each month of the year?

Four bases cover a year of mostly dry weather: Chiang Mai, Ko Lanta, Koh Samui and Bali with Lombok. The route below follows the seasons of Southeast Asia, which is where most remote workers spend the cold half of the year, and it is built from the climate data we hold for each place, averaged over many years, not from a list of nice cities. Every month has a base, a number to check it against, the trap, and the date to leave by. Where to go in November and the eleven "where is warm" guides link out from each month below if you want the full ranking.

The air by month for the places on the route, which the cards above quote only where it matters (Lombok is not in our air data, and Ko Lanta is read from Krabi next door):

Read it as a loop: December and January close one year and open the next. The route is the same as the one in our sample plan for the northern winter, which is where you can see the full leave-by reasoning. If you would rather start from your own dates and priorities, the Where should I go? finder runs the same data for your month.

Where to be next: your month-by-month route, $19

A route for your months with a leave-by date for each stop, a backup, and the seasonal traps on your path. Drafted from 11 years of weather data, every number checked against it, in your inbox within 48 hours. Not included: visas, insurance or bookings.

See a sample plan Get my plan, $19

What does January look like?

Stay in Chiang Mai: 27° by day and rain on about 2 of 31 days. The cool mornings are the reason people choose it in January. The trap is the air, not the rain: 26 µg/m³ is above the WHO 24-hour guideline of 15, and the burning season starts to build. If air matters more than cool mornings, Krabi sits at 12 µg/m³ and Ko Lanta has rain on about 4 of 31 days. Skip Bali: Canggu has rain on 19 of 31 days. See where is warm in January.

Where should you be in February?

Chiang Mai until about 20 February, then Ko Lanta. February is the month the air turns: Chiang Mai averages 28 µg/m³ and rises to 38 in March, so the sensible leave-by date is two weeks before the jump, not after it. Ko Lanta has rain on about 2 of 28 days and a 32° high. Bali is at its worst here, with Canggu on 20 of 28 days. See where is warm in February.

Where should you be in March?

Ko Lanta, with the Gulf of Thailand as the alternative. The Andaman coast is at its driest, rain on about 3 of 31 days, and Krabi's air is 14 µg/m³, almost clean. Chiang Mai is the only place on this route where you must not be, at 38 µg/m³ on average, so read the smoke calendar before you extend there. Bali has its own closing day, Nyepi, which falls in March, and the island, including the airport, shuts for a day. See where is warm in March.

Where should you be in April?

Koh Samui. Ko Lanta is no longer a safe bet, with rain on about 10 of 30 days, while Samui has rain on about 5 of 30 and a 31° high, and PM2.5 at 11 µg/m³. Thailand is hot everywhere in April: Bangkok and Chiang Mai are at 34° and 35°, and Songkran, on 13 to 15 April, is a loud week to have deadlines. Da Nang is the other April option, at 30° and about 3 rainy days of 30. See where is warm in April.

Where should you be in May?

Bali. Leave Samui by the end of April: its rain jumps to about 9 of 31 days in May, while Uluwatu is down to about 5 of 31 and Canggu about 7. Uluwatu is the drier side of the island. Bali's rice-field burning can still hang over Canggu and Pererenan after a harvest, so look at the Bali air quality guide before choosing your village. See where is warm in May.

Where should you be in June?

Lombok, or stay at Uluwatu. Lombok is the drier neighbour of Bali, with rain on about 4 of 30 days in June and a 29° high. There is no PM2.5 series for Lombok in our data, so we cannot compare its air; the nearest we have is Canggu, at 10 µg/m³. If you want Europe for the summer instead, Lisbon is at 25°. See where is warm in June.

Where should you be in July?

Lombok at 28° and about 3 rainy days of 31, or Lisbon at 28° with almost no rainy days. July is the month the choice between Asia and Europe is real: both are dry, and the difference is price and crowds. Bali's July and August are peak season, so book before you arrive. Madeira (26°, about 2 rainy days) and the Canary Islands (25°, about 1) are the cooler summer bases. See where is warm in July.

Where should you be in August?

Lombok, the driest month of the route: about 2 rainy days of 31. Canggu has about 4 and Uluwatu about 4. The trap is crowds, not weather: August is peak season on both islands, so book ahead. If your place sits next to rice fields, read the Bali air guide on harvest burning. In Europe, Lisbon is at 28° and almost dry; Seville and Dubai are too hot to work outside. See where is warm in August.

Where should you be in September?

Lombok for one more month: about 3 rainy days of 30 and 29°. This is the last easy month in Asia. Bali's rain starts to build from here, Uluwatu has about 5 days in September and about 6 in October, and Vietnam is in monsoon: Da Nang has rain on about 12 of 30 days and Kuala Lumpur's air is 41 µg/m³. See where is warm in September.

Where should you be in October?

Uluwatu, for your last dry weeks in Bali. Rain is about 6 of 31 days and the high is 29°. Skip Bangkok and Vietnam's coast in October: Bangkok's air averages 37 µg/m³ and Da Nang has rain on about 18 of 31 days. Leave by the end of the month: Uluwatu's rain climbs to 11 of 30 days in November, and Lombok's to 14. See where is warm in October.

Where should you be in November?

Chiang Mai, and nowhere on a Thai coast. This is the month that breaks most plans. Chiang Mai has rain on about 4 of 30 days, a 29° high and air at 22 µg/m³, while Koh Samui has rain on about 18 of 30 days, Ko Lanta about 17, Da Nang about 16 and Canggu about 15. Warm-and-dry bases outside Asia are Goa and Puerto Escondido, each with rain on about 2 of 30 days. The comparison:

See where to go in November for the full ranking.

Where should you be in December?

Chiang Mai: 27° and rain on about 1 of 31 days. The air is hazy at 26 µg/m³, so for cleaner air go to the Andaman coast after mid-December: Krabi is at 8 µg/m³ and Ko Lanta has rain on about 8 of 31 days. Canggu has rain on about 21 of 31 days, which is the reason to leave Bali before December. See where is warm in December and the Chiang Mai versus Bangkok choice.

How do you use a calendar like this?

1. Choose the month you must be somewhere, then work out the neighbours. The route above is a loop, so you can start it in any month.
2. Move before the turn, not after. The leave-by dates (20 February, the end of March, the end of April, the end of October) sit just before the numbers change.
3. Check the air with the weather. Clean air often comes with rain. The cleanest air by month page compares 17 places on the same data.
4. Keep a week of margin. These are averages. A late wet season is common and does not mean the pattern has changed. Weather for digital nomads explains how to read an average.

We give no health advice. If you are sensitive to polluted air, ask a doctor before planning a long stay.

Method note

• Source: monthly averages of daily weather from Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0), stored in our own tables. A rainy day is a day with at least 2 mm of rain, or 4 mm in the tropics, shown as a count out of the days in the month.
• Air: fine-particle averages for the years 2023 to 2025 (the PM2.5 measure) from a Copernicus model, read through Open-Meteo. The model reads low on bad days and its grid is about 45 km wide. Use it to compare months and places.
• Not covered: visas, prices and flights. Peak-season prices and festival closures are mentioned only where they change the month.

Where to be next month, by email

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