When to Travel

The word does a lot of damage. People picture a fortnight indoors and book July out of the calendar without asking anybody.

What it actually is, across most of the country: intermittent rain rather than constant rain, heavy for an hour and then gone, with the landscape at its greenest for the only time in the year. Forts you have seen a hundred times in dusty ochre come back in deep green. The light is extraordinary and the crowds are somewhere else.

The honest costs, because there are some. Some hill roads close. Most wildlife parks close. Humidity in the plains is real and it is tiring. And a monsoon journey has to be built to absorb a lost afternoon rather than pretend none will happen.

In Kerala it is not a compromise at all — it is the Ayurvedic season, and the one the treatments are designed around.

www.elevatedindia.com/journal/monsoon-india-green-season

There is no single best time, and anybody who gives you one is describing Rajasthan and calling it the country.

The broad shape:

Oct – Nov. Comfortable across the north and centre after the monsoon; some warm days remain. Dec – Feb. Peak for Rajasthan, Delhi and Agra — sunny days, cold mornings, occasional dawn fog. The south stays warm. Mar – Apr. Pleasant in March, hot by April, especially in the north. May – Jun. Very hot in the north and centre. The Himalaya and parts of the south stay comfortable. Jul – Sep. Intermittent rather than constant rain, landscapes at their greenest; some hill roads and wildlife parks close.

Two exceptions break the rule entirely, and both have their own room here — the high Himalaya is summer only, and Kerala runs a different calendar from the north.

If you are choosing between two months, tell us which regions you care about first. The answer changes completely depending on the answer to that.

www.elevatedindia.com/journal/when-to-travel-india