Best Time To Travel To: Indonesia
Indonesia stretches from 5° north to 10° south. The state is quite dissected, because Indonesia consists of a large number of different islands. The largest of the island are Sumatra, Java, Borneo and Sulawesi. One of the most famous islands is the slightly smaller island of Bali.
Many of the Indonesian islands are mountainous and of volcanic origin and on many islands you can find or found a lot of rainforest. Even though many islands are similar, the climatic conditions are relatively different. Basically, the temperatures are also lower here on the highlands, but the amount of precipitation depends primarily on the winds that affect the islands.
Dominant here are the north monsoon (between November and March) and the south monsoon (May to September). Transitional phases with frequently shifting winds are found in the months of April and October.
Most of the islands have a kind of equatorial climate. It rains quite abundantly throughout the year. In many places there are two rainy seasons, with the southern coasts and the areas south of the equator being rainier during the south monsoon, and the northern coasts and northern parts being rainier during the north monsoon.
One can see the differences quite well if one compares, for example, the climatic conditions of, say, Jakarta (north coast of Java) with those of Balikpapan (Borneo, southeast coast).
Rainfall is certainly one of the main issues if you are interested in Indonesia. As mentioned, it actually rains all year round. Often the rains are heavy, in addition there are always more or less violent storms. Some parts of Indonesia are among the stormiest regions in the world.
The comparatively high amounts of precipitation also become clear if one takes Jakarta as an example. Jakarta is considered one of the drier corners of Indonesia, yet the place receives many times more rain than most even rainier cities in Europe. However - and this makes the severity of the rainfall clear - despite the many times higher amounts of rainfall, it rains on far fewer days and for fewer hours than it does here in Europe.
The temperatures are - typical for the equatorial climate - very stable throughout the year with only slight variations. This is at least true for the coastal regions. Larger deviations are actually only in the mountains and in some places in the inland of the islands. There the nights can also be cooler. The sun shines quite often almost everywhere in Indonesia. In the rainy season, the country gets an average of five hours of sunshine a day, and in the drier periods an average of nine hours. This sounds paradoxical, but in fact there are two main conditions in Indonesia: very sunny and beautiful or cloudy and rainy.
When is the best time for Indonesia
The optimal travel time for Indonesia is often given for the period May to September. Theoretically, this is the dry season (although you should expect the rainy season to begin around the end of September). For all northern areas and all parts north of the equator this is more or less true. Less so for all southern regions, where the best time to travel would be from October to April. On Java, the dry phase can be found between June and the end of September. Sumatra on the other hand has no real dry season, here especially September is a quite pleasant travel month. For the Lesser Sunda Islands, the drier phase is between April and October. Globally, from these findings, September could be considered quite a good travel month for Indonesia.
