The Best Time to Visit Is Also the Rainiest Month in 1 in 7 Top Travel Destinations, Champion Traveler Study Finds

Summer storms rarely spoil the best season in Europe and North America, while in monsoon climates the best time to visit avoids the wettest month in 64 of 65 destinations.

SOUTH JORDAN, Utah, Nov. 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- In about 1 in 7 of the world's top tourist destinations, the best time to visit falls in the rainiest month of the year, according to a new study by Champion Traveler of 463 destinations that have a rainy season. The full study is at https://championtraveler.com/news/rainiest-month-best-time-to-visit/.

The answer depends on the kind of rain. In the inland cities of central and eastern Europe and North America, the rainiest month is a summer month and the rain comes as short afternoon thunderstorms: at the median, rain falls on 26 percent of days in those months, so three days in four stay dry. Where a monsoon brings rain on most days of the wet season, the recommended months sit in the dry season instead.

Key findings:

• 66 of the 463 destinations are best visited in their rainiest month. In 30 of them that month is June, July or August, including Prague, Moscow, Toronto, Budapest, Krakow, Warsaw and Chicago.
• Eastern Europe leads: in 8 of 11 top destinations there, the rainiest month is also one of the best months to visit. In Western Europe it is 5 of 20, and in North America 15 of 91.
• In South and Southeast Asia it almost never happens: 2 of 111 destinations.
• Of the 65 destinations whose rainiest month brings rain on half of its days or more, the best time to visit avoids that month in 64. Mumbai's rainiest month, July, brings rain on 72 percent of days.
• Bangkok's rainiest month is September, with rain on 57 percent of days; its best time to visit runs from December through March.
• Across all 463 destinations, the recommended months see rain on 14 percent of days at the median, against 23 percent for the rest of the year.

Methodology. Champion Traveler compared two things its Best Time to Visit page shows for each destination: the chance of rain in every month, measured as the share of days with at least 0.1 inch of rain in NOAA weather station records (with NASA data calibrated to station records where a record had gaps), and the months the page recommends. The destinations are the 500 cities, towns, islands and resort areas with the most hotels listed on Expedia; 37 with no real rainy season or with 10 or more recommended months are left out of the counts.

About Champion Traveler. Champion Traveler publishes data-driven travel research, including Best Time to Visit guides for more than 5,000 destinations and studies of red-eye flights and flyover states. Champion Traveler is a Terra Lake Data company.

Media contact: Edwin Ivanauskas, [email protected], 1-385-462-2956

SOURCE Champion Traveler