Where to go in August
August replays July's split, with central Europe joining the Atlantic edge: Vienna and Budapest alongside Porto, Madeira, Lisbon, Paris and London, while Nairobi, Kigali and Kilimanjaro hold the African side. Vienna misses the ceiling by a breath, 99.7. Two warnings. Six days of rain in a central European August are thunderstorms — brief, violent, over by evening — not the steady grey of a northern winter, so the count looks harsher on paper than it feels on the spot. And this is the priciest fortnight of the year across the continent, the one moment when a cheap country and a costly one converge, demand setting the rate instead of local prices. Hence the cities above: Budapest at 653 on our index and Porto at 686 stay reachable when the coast does not. The score also ignores air conditioning, which decides a hot city's comfort.
The ranking for August
8. Kilimanjaro — Tanzania
Score 98.2Day28.6 °CNight17.4 °CRainy days4
12. London — United Kingdom
Score 96.0Day23.3 °CNight15.6 °CRainy days7
Three of them in detail
Budapest — Hungary
Budapest reads 28.5 °C by day and 17 °C at night, six days above 1 mm and 74.5 mm: storms, not drizzle, and August is in fact its wettest month. At 653 on our index it stays clearly under French prices, and its airport is 18 km from the centre. The good season here fits into five months.
Essaouira — Morocco
Essaouira holds a singular position: 27.2 °C by day and 20 °C at night, without one day above 1 mm. August sits inside its five driest months, within a year of only 232.3 mm, and its good season covers all twelve. The airport is 14 km away.
Kigali — Rwanda
Kigali registers 28 °C in the afternoon, 17.7 °C at night and three days above 1 mm for 17.3 mm: August falls in the middle of its three dry months and shares with September the warmest slot of the year. The airport is 8 km from the centre, rare proximity for a long-haul arrival.
What to avoid this month
The list is all water this month. The monsoon still holds India, Kerala at 29 days of rain and Goa at 28. Addis Ababa matches them with 28 days and 276.3 mm, Lagos takes 20. Reykjavik adds its 15 for a high of 13.9 °C — that is its summer.
- Keralatoo wet
- Addis Ababatoo wet
- Goatoo wet
- Reykjaviktoo wet
- Lagostoo wet
How the score is calculated
One formula, applied identically to the hundred places, on measured station records:
score = 100 − 3·max(0, |tMax − 25| − 3) − 4·max(0, rainyDays1 − 6) − 2·max(0, 12 − tMin)A place is flagged as one to avoid when it records 14 rainy days or more in the month, an average high of 34 °C or more, or an average high of 8 °C or less. Only the five lowest-scoring flagged places are listed.
Updated on 21 September 2026