Beware of the Weather Before Planning Your Trip

I don’t know why there is not enough talk about the importance of the weather while planning your next dream trip. And if you are a photography enthusiast like me, then weather can literally make or break your travel experience. I understood this earlier in my traveling journey while traveling locally to mountain trails or exploring new beaches. There was one time when I was traveling to an island deep into the sea in my country. It is a popular destination here, and I was going there for the first time. Just before boarding the ship to the island, I got the news that there was a hurricane alert and ships would remain closed for a few days. I spent my 3 days holiday almost trapped in a hotel room. 

But local destinations can disappoint you only so much. What if your planned trip to a foreign country gets ruined by some unwanted weather event? It can be a lifetime disappointment. In this article, I am going to share how I have avoided some near disasters by checking the weather beforehand. You can apply the same system that i use before planning any trip.

Maldives is my wife’s dream honeymoon destination. I knew that before marrying her. We even kept our wedding ceremony as low-key as possible just to fund our Honeymoon. To travel for a week, we targeted our national holiday during the so-called “off-season”. So we had to be careful about selecting travel dates to avoid rainy days. The first thing on our agenda was whether to start from Maldives or Sri Lanka. I started checking weather updates 2 months before our planned travel date. Booked the flight 1 month ago. I checked 3-4 weather services websites and found 2-3 days of less rainy days during a period of heavy rain forecast. However, scientifically weather forecast accuracy is more reliable up to two weeks ahead. But as all the weather services provide data months ahead, I decided to rely on that anyway. And it paid off! According to the data I got a month ahead, we started our honeymoon in Maldives. One of my colleagues spent her days in Maldives trapped indoors due to heavy rain. We didn’t want that. Another thing was i am a mountain person. So my main motivation for Maldives was the prospect of scuba diving. When we landed on our resort island, It was raining. So we started to become pessimistic about our entire plan. But fortunately, the rainy sessions were not long enough to ruin our honeymoon. Even when we went to book a scuba diving session, they said they were not taking pre-booking due to the weather. Yes, we had to wait hours inside our water villa for the rain to stop. But we got our sunrise from the heart of the ocean just as perfectly as our scuba diving on the last day. It was all possible because I checked the weather! 

"An underwater selfie of a man scuba diving."
DCIM\100GOPRO\GOPR9555.

Well, this one was on both of our bucket lists. And again, another weather-dependent activity. After 2 years of COVID lockdown and its after effects, Turkey was the destination we chose to taste life again. We planned to travel during May. Which is not an off-season, but it had its risks weather-wise. I started checking the weather a month before our travel date. And found rain was again threatening our plan. There was no way i was coming back from Turkey without riding the balloon. Purchased the air tickets 20 days ago. We planned precisely where we wanted to go beforehand, and now it was crucial to decide where we would be on which dates. A week before our travel date, I started rechecking the weather. There were 3 -4 days of rain forecast in Göreme, where the hot air balloon is. Initially, we planned to stay at Denizli for 2 days and then go to Goreme. But the weather forecast showed very little chance that within the 2-day range, we would get to fly. So we cut a day from Denizli & added it to Göreme. I booked the hotels accordingly. Booked a hot air balloon ride as well on the second morning of Göreme. But later it got cancelled due to bad weather. On the morning we arrived at Göreme, we saw a lady checking out from the hotel and complaining about the weather. She was talking with the manager about how unlucky she was not to be able to fly due to bad weather, even after staying for 3 days. But when we finally rode the balloon on our last day at Göreme, I knew it wasn’t bad luck for that lady. She just didn’t consider the weather. 

"Multiple hot air balloon flying near the ground."

So I urge you, fellow travelers, to consider the weather before traveling. Just follow these simple steps: 

  1. Check the weather before booking the flight if you can readjust your dates.
  2. Check hourly weather data 1-2 weeks prior if you plan to do anything weather-sensitive. Or just want some good photos in a particular location. 
  3. The weather is not the same throughout a country, even during the rainy season. So, plan your stops by checking local weather data. 

It takes minutes, not hours, to check weather data, so please do it. Even if you are getting help from a travel agency, you can thoroughly specify your dates and stops. In my experience, travel agencies almost never consider the weather. You are buying an experience, not just some tickets and a hotel room, so try to own it!