Hiking the Southeast Asian Highlands

When to hike the Southeast Asian Highlands

All year except April, all 8 destinations clear our recommendation criteria. The area is quietest in April, with 7 of 8.

Averaged across the destinations, April is the warmest month at 22 degrees in the hiking window and January the coldest at 19. 2 of the 8 destinations lie in the southern hemisphere, where the year runs the other way.

How far apart the destinations are

The selected grid cells run from 1,179 metres at Banaue to 1,815 metres at Mount Kinabalu, with a median of 1,606 metres. Both clear the criteria in 12 months (all year).

The longest season belongs to 7 destinations, including Mount Rinjani and Bromo Tengger Semeru, at 12 months each; the shortest to Doi Inthanon, at 11 months (all year except April).

What closes the missing months

Where a destination loses months, a critical climate component falls below the threshold at which we stop recommending a month. The main reason is heat for 1 of the 8 destinations. 7 are recommendable in all twelve months.

In April, the quietest month, 1 of 8 destinations are closed, all of them by heat.

Conditions in August

August is when the open destinations score highest on average. Hiking-window temperature then runs from 20 degrees at Mount Kinabalu to 24 at Banaue, and rain falls on 9 to 97 percent of days depending on the destination.

What these figures cover

Each destination is described by one selected ERA5-Land grid cell, averaged over 1991 to 2025. The figures above summarise those 8 cells. They are not a map of the whole area or of any route, and they are not a forecast.