This Map Reveals The Best Time To Visit Anywhere In The World

Let a self-described “data guy and digital nomad” help you plan your next vacation with perfect weather.

Best Time To Visit
Best Time To Visit
A screenshot of Whitacker’s map

You’ve finally accrued enough vacation days to kiss the office goodbye, pack your bags, and give your brain and body the break they need.

But what restorative locale will be your destination? Self-described “data guy and digital nomad” Ryan Whitacker has the answer in a handy tool.

Whitacker built an interactive map to help you find the best time to visit anywhere in the world based on your weather preferences. To discover your perfect destination, enter the date you plan to travel and select your ideal maximum, minimum, and average temperature. You may also decide how strict to be about avoiding rainfall if getting wet is not your thing.

If you already know the date you’ll be on holiday, input your desired temperatures and click to the date you’d like. If you have a place in mind but not exact dates, try zooming in on the location and clicking through to a week.

Whitacker’s own travels inspired the creation of the map.

“I often found myself searching Google for things like, ‘best places to visit in January’ or ‘best time to visit Spain’,” he writes. “I was almost always disappointed with the results. I’d usually find anecdotes and broad date ranges with no supporting data whatsoever. In most cases I got the feeling that recommendations were coming from paid authors who had never even been to the place, let alone often enough to make a date recommendation.”

Like any good “data guy” with wanderlust, Whitacker took matters into his own hands. He downloaded ten years of weather data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from more than 10,000 weather stations around the world. All told, he gathered 35 million lines of data to work with. After some technical and visual wizardry, he had a functioning tool to display average temperatures and precipitation for any given area by week.

Though Whitacker originally created the map to be his own personal guide, he generously decided to share it with the world. He even built two versions: one in Celsius and one in Fahrenheit. Check them out and with just a few clicks, you could have your next trip planned in perfect weather.

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