Where to go in May

May is one of the even months — the shoulder seasons line up on both sides of the equator, so the list below spans 12 northern and 12 southern destinations. That makes it one of the better months for going somewhere unusual rather than somewhere obvious. On the scoring used here, the strongest single destination in May is Arequipa — 25 °C, rain on 0 days, and 100 out of 100.

Against April, the map has moved: Saguenay (+34), Banff (+31) and Aspen (+30) improve most sharply on April, while Cairo (-36), Phoenix (-35) and Sharm el-Sheikh (-33) fall away fastest. Those are the places where a fortnight's difference in your dates changes the trip.

Depending on what you are actually after in May: for heat with low odds of rain, Broome at 32.8 °C across 2 wet days, for the driest month outright, Hurghada with 0 rain days and for mild rather than hot, Hiroshima at 24 °C with 10 rain days.

If the weather matters less to you than the crowd does, Antofagasta scores well in May while still sitting outside its own peak season — the combination that gets you the place closer to itself.

Ranked on a 0–100 score combining temperature, rain days, heavy-rain days and humidity, computed from NASA POWER daily data 2001–2020. Capped at three cities per country so the list stays useful rather than becoming one coastline.

Best May destinations

1. 1 Arequipa Peru Drier than the rest at 0 wet days, 25 °C.
2. 2 Port Said Egypt Drier than the rest at 0 wet days, 21.6 °C.
3. 3 San Diego United States 25.4 °C, lows of 14.4 °C, rain on 1 day.
4. 4 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Spain 20.9 °C, lows of 18.3 °C, rain on 1 day.
5. 5 Alice Springs Australia 24.9 °C and notably dry air at 42% humidity.
6. 6 Johannesburg South Africa 20.4 °C and notably dry air at 54% humidity.
7. 7 Los Angeles United States 25.9 °C, lows of 14.1 °C, rain on 2 days.
8. 8 Pretoria South Africa 23.8 °C and notably dry air at 50% humidity.
9. 9 San Jose United States 23.6 °C by day falling to 9.9 °C overnight — hot afternoons, cool sleeping.
10. 10 Salta Argentina 25.9 °C, but only 10.9 hours of daylight; short days for an otherwise good month.
11. 11 Cartagena Spain 23.7 °C, lows of 16.5 °C, rain on 3 days.
12. 12 Kalgoorlie Australia 22.3 °C and notably dry air at 57% humidity.
13. 13 Chaniá Greece 23.5 °C, lows of 17.6 °C, rain on 4 days.
14. 14 San Miguel de Tucumán Argentina 23.9 °C, but only 10.8 hours of daylight; short days for an otherwise good month.
15. 15 Antofagasta Chile Cooler than most of this list at 18.1 °C — the option if heat is the thing you are avoiding.
16. 16 Catania Italy 27 °C, lows of 15.2 °C, rain on 4 days.
17. 17 Ródos Greece 23.5 °C, lows of 18.8 °C, rain on 4 days.
18. 18 Taormina Italy 23.2 °C, lows of 15.2 °C, rain on 5 days.
19. 19 Wuzhong China 26.4 °C and notably dry air at 35% humidity.
20. 20 Casablanca Morocco 25.3 °C, lows of 16 °C, rain on 4 days.
21. 21 Belo Horizonte Brazil 25.6 °C, but only 11.2 hours of daylight; short days for an otherwise good month.
22. 22 Córdoba Argentina 22.3 °C, but only 10.6 hours of daylight; short days for an otherwise good month.
23. 23 Goiânia Brazil 27 °C, but only 11.3 hours of daylight; short days for an otherwise good month.
24. 24 Gqeberha South Africa 21.5 °C, but only 10.4 hours of daylight; short days for an otherwise good month.

Where to avoid in May

• Akureyri Iceland Highs of 1.2 °C, and 25 nights below freezing.
• Kolkata India 25 days above 35 °C — the month is the problem, not a heatwave within it.
• Bharatpur Nepal 29 days above 35 °C — the month is the problem, not a heatwave within it.
• Jamshedpur India 30 days above 35 °C — the month is the problem, not a heatwave within it.
• St. John's Canada 5.8 °C and rain on 16 days — nothing works in its favour.
• Bhubaneswar India 28 days above 35 °C — the month is the problem, not a heatwave within it.
• Ushuaia Argentina 5.4 °C and rain on 16 days — nothing works in its favour.
• Tromsø Norway 6.8 °C and rain on 17 days — nothing works in its favour.

Other months