Monsoon

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Best Time to Visit India, in One Sentence The first time I planned India, I picked May because the flights were cheap. A seasoned traveler at my hostel in Delhi heard the plan, put down her chai, and said simply: “You’re going to melt.” She was right. Forty-three degrees in the shade of a Jaipur fort, the marble too hot to touch, every sane local indoors by noon. I’d accidentally booked the worst possible month — and learned the single most important rule about this enormous, glorious country. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Best Time to Visit Sri Lanka, in One Sentence We almost cancelled. Three days before flying to Sri Lanka in July, a friend messaged a photo of Galle Fort under sheets of grey rain and asked why on earth we’d booked the monsoon. What he didn’t know was that we weren’t going west at all — we were heading to Arugam Bay on the east coast, where July is bone-dry, the surf is glassy, and the sun barely quits. That single quirk of geography is the most important thing to understand about this island. ...