1. Cape Town — South Africa
Score 100.0Day25.7 °CNight16.7 °CRainy days3
Where to go in December
December is two months sewn together. Until around the twentieth, Europe is calm and cheap outside the ski resorts and the Christmas-market cities; then come the ten dearest days of the winter, when a seat to the Canaries or the Gulf exceeds its August price. The table itself returns to the January configuration: Aswan with no measurable rain, AlUla at 24 °C after a September at 41.3 °C, Sharm El Sheikh, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Ras Al Khaimah, Muscat, Wadi Rum, and the Cape on the far side of the equator. All twelve reach 100, and Tenerife is once again the only European name among them. What the score will not say: a December day is short everywhere outside the tropics, the sea is out of the question beyond the Canaries, and a place can rank well while offering five usable hours of light.
The ranking for December
2. Stellenbosch — South Africa
Score 100.0Day25.7 °CNight16.7 °CRainy days3
3. AlUla — Saudi Arabia
Score 100.0Day24.0 °CNight12.9 °CRainy days1
4. Sal — Cape Verde
Score 100.0Day26.4 °CNight21.6 °CRainy days1
6. Sharm El Sheikh — Egypt
Score 100.0Day24.8 °CNight17.5 °CRainy days0
7. Abu Dhabi — United Arab Emirates
Score 100.0Day26.6 °CNight19.4 °CRainy days1
8. Dubai — United Arab Emirates
Score 100.0Day27.4 °CNight19.5 °CRainy days1
9. Ras Al Khaimah — United Arab Emirates
Score 100.0Day27.7 °CNight14.6 °CRainy days1
Three of them in detail
Aswan — Egypt
Aswan reads 25.5 °C by day and 12.3 °C at night, without a day above 1 mm and for 0.1 mm over the month. Its entire year registers one rainy day and 7.4 mm, the driest figures in our data. The airport is 15 km out, and the good season fits into three months.
AlUla — Saudi Arabia
AlUla posts 24 °C in the afternoon and 12.9 °C at night, one day above 1 mm. The desert swing makes the story, and so does the calendar: the same place shows 41.3 °C in September, and its good season holds five months only. The airport is 5 km from the old town, a rarity.
Abu Dhabi — United Arab Emirates
Abu Dhabi holds 26.6 °C by day and 19.4 °C at night, a single day of rain and 8.1 mm. December opens a four-month window that shuts in March, and January is the coldest month of its year — which in the Gulf means pleasant. The airport is 27 km away.
What to avoid this month
Reykjavik combines damp and darkness: 15 days above 1 mm, 118.5 mm, a high of 1.2 °C. Four entries trigger the cold alert instead — Oslo at 1.5 °C, Stockholm at 1.7 °C, Berlin at 2.3 °C, Interlaken at 3.8 °C with nights at −2 °C. Snow and markets, or nothing.
- Reykjaviktoo wet
- Oslotoo cold
- Stockholmtoo cold
- Interlakentoo cold
- Berlintoo cold
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