Where to Go in November for Warm, Dry Weather, and the Places That Are Traps

Which places are warm and dry in November?

Not the beaches most people picture. Nine places pass our test in November: an average daytime high of at least 24° and rain on no more than one day in ten, about three rainy days, over eleven years of daily weather. They are spread across the world: an Atlantic island, a desert coast, Goa, two southern-hemisphere cities, the Mexican Pacific and Hawaii.

Read the top of the list first: Cape Verde and Oaxaca have no rainy days at all, and Dubai, Santiago and Perth follow with one to two. Goa, Dubai and Puerto Escondido are hot, at 31° to 32°, a different working day from the 29° of Cape Verde. Los Angeles only just clears the line.

No part of mainland Southeast Asia makes the list, but for most nomads in Asia the north and centre are still the answer, because they come close.

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.

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Which places are traps in November?

Three at once, which is what makes November different from every other month. Each of them is warm, so the temperature tells you nothing; the rain does. They are the muted list above.

The Thai Gulf islands. Koh Samui gets 457 mm and Koh Phangan 433 mm, the wettest month of the year on both. The Wikipedia climate record for Samui also puts November on top, so this is not a quirk of our data. It is the part people get wrong, because the Andaman side of Thailand is already drying out and "Thailand in November" sounds like one weather. Our three coasts guide shows the pattern across the year, and our Samui and Phangan guide says when they come good: February and March.

Central Vietnam. Da Nang gets 521 mm, with typhoon and flood risk, and December is still wet. See Da Nang in December.

Phuket and the Andaman coast. Phuket gets 213 mm and Krabi 235 mm, with cloud over about 88% of the sky. Less than the Gulf, but still the wrong month: the good stretch starts around mid-December. See Phuket in November.

Bali is a turning month: the rainy season is arriving, and Canggu, Uluwatu and Ubud all get 204 to 249 mm. The gap between them is too small to pick a base on. See Canggu, Uluwatu and Ubud compared and Bali air quality.

What are the good picks for a working November?

Two kinds: the dry places from the list, and the places just outside it that nomads in Asia actually use. For the second kind, here is how close they come:

• Chiang Mai for the cool, dry month and a big nomad community. November is two months before the burning season, which starts in January and peaks in March and April, so you get the good weather without the smoke; see the burning season guide.
• Bangkok if you want a big city. It is hotter and drying out fast, to about an eighth of November's rain by December.
• Hua Hin, on the Gulf's western shore, gets about a third of Samui's rain. We do not hold data for the east-coast islands (Koh Chang, Koh Kood, Koh Samet), so we do not rank them.
• Ho Chi Minh City and Phu Quoc are warm and much drier than Da Nang, and both get drier from December.
• Hanoi looks dry and mild, but smog season starts around December; see Hanoi air quality.
• The Canary Islands (23°) are mild rather than hot, with rain on about 7 of 30 days. Cape Verde is warmer and nearly rain-free.

Travelling beyond November, or need to dodge smoke, heat or rain? Pick your months and what to avoid and get your 3 best places, with the numbers.

What we would do

For a November base: Chiang Mai or Bangkok for the working weeks, then decide on the coast in December rather than now. Keep Samui and Phangan for February and March, the Andaman for after mid-December, and Bali for April to October. See where is warm in December for the next step of the circuit.