Best Time To Visit Kota Kinabalu

April is the last of the dry window and still a strong month, with rain building slowly through it.

May is noticeably wetter, though mornings usually stay clear. From here on, book boats and climbs for early in the day.

June and July are wetter than the February window but well short of the October peak. Showers tend to arrive in the afternoon rather than sitting over the whole day.

They are also the Malaysian holiday peak, so island ferries and Kinabalu climb permits need booking further ahead than the weather alone would suggest.

August and September see the rain climbing towards its annual peak. September starts costing you whole days rather than just afternoons.

Move to February or March if you can. The gap between September and February here is the difference between planning around rain and barely noticing it.

October is the wettest month of the year and November is close behind. Island trips get cancelled outright and the mountain stays in cloud.

Switching within Malaysia will not help, because October and November are wet from George Town to the Cameron Highlands. For fixed dates, Hua Hin in Thailand is dry through November and Thimphu has its clearest, driest weeks of the whole year in October and November.

December is still wet, though it is past the October and November peak. Rain falls away steadily through January.

Late January is a fair compromise, sitting just ahead of the February low and priced below the peak dry weeks.

For the Mount Kinabalu climb, February to April is the clear choice. The summit view is the whole point and cloud follows the rain, so the driest months buy the best odds of seeing anything at all.

For the Tunku Abdul Rahman islands, the same months give the calmest crossings and the clearest water. Between October and December, assume some days will be cancelled.