Best time to visit Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is a city of two halves. December scores 94 and April scores 30 — a 64-point swing, which is the difference between a holiday and an endurance test. The month you pick matters more here than almost anywhere. Only 2 months come close to the top, which makes the timing narrow.

April is the warmest month at 37.3 °C and December the coolest at 27.6 °C — a 9.7 °C spread across the year. 244 days a year top 30 °C, more than a third of the calendar, so heat is the baseline here rather than a season.

There is a real wet season here. May to September carry the rain — up to 27 wet days in a month — while January, February, March, November and December drop as low as 1. That 26-day gap is the biggest single difference between a good month and a bad one in Chiang Mai, and it moves further than the temperature does.

Daylight runs from 11 hours in winter to 13.3 in summer, enough to notice on a sightseeing itinerary.

The three strongest months are December, January, November. The one to think twice about is April. Each month below has its own page with rainfall reliability, extremes, daylight and crowd levels.

Chiang Mai month by month