The short answer
December to April is the dry season, and it's the best time of year to visit Cartagena if you want reliable sun. February is the driest month on record, averaging 1mm of rain and effectively no rainy days at all. January gives you about nine hours of sunshine a day. Those months are also the ones everyone else has picked, so you pay for the privilege and you queue for things.
The rest of the year is warm, wetter, cheaper and, in our opinion, underrated. Nobody comes to Cartagena for the cold.
Month by month, with the numbers
| Month | Rain | Rainy days | Mean temp | Our read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 4mm | 1 | 27.6C | Driest air, most sun, highest prices |
| February | 1mm | 0 | 27.6C | The safest bet of the year for weather |
| March | 2mm | 1 | 28C | Still bone dry, slightly quieter than February |
| April | 25mm | 3 | 28.7C | Dry season fading, prices easing. Our favourite |
| May | 115mm | 10 | 29C | Rain arrives, usually in short bursts |
| June | 100mm | 12 | 29.1C | Hottest month on average, frequent short showers |
| July | 110mm | 10 | 29C | A dip in the rain some years, busy with Colombian holidays |
| August | 125mm | 13 | 29C | Wet and hot |
| September | 135mm | 14 | 28.9C | Grey stretches, only 5.5 hours of sun a day |
| October | 230mm | 16 | 28.6C | The wettest month by far. Go in knowing that |
| November | 140mm | 11 | 28.4C | Still wet, but the Independence fiestas fill the city |
| December | 35mm | 3 | 28.2C | Dry season returns, Christmas and New Year sell out |
Sea temperature barely moves: 27C in February and March, 29C from June through November. Swimming is never the reason to pick a month.
The months we'd avoid, and the ones we'd gamble on
October is the one month we'd steer you away from if your trip is short and weather-dependent. 230mm across 16 days is not a passing shower, and September and October both drop to about five and a half hours of sun a day. If you have four nights and one of them is a boat day, the odds aren't with you.
Late April and early May is the gamble we'd take ourselves. You get the tail of the dry season, water at 27C to 28C, and rooms across the region that are no longer priced for high season. May averages ten rainy days, which sounds worse than it is: the rain here tends to come hard for an hour and then leave.
One more thing people ask about. Cartagena sits at the edge of the Atlantic hurricane belt and is only ever brushed rather than hit, though the storms that have passed nearby, Joan, Cesar, Matthew and Iota, all came between late July and mid-November. It's a small risk, not a reason to rearrange a trip.
The crowds matter more than the rain
Two periods fill Cartagena regardless of weather. The first is Christmas through New Year, when the city is at its fullest and its most expensive. The second is the week around 11 November, when the Fiestas de Independencia bring parades, the Cabildo de Getsemani and a national holiday weekend behind it. Both are genuinely good times to be here. Neither is a good time to arrive without a booking.
Semana Santa in the run-up to Easter is the third one to watch, since Colombian families travel then and the coast fills up fast.
What the seasons look like out here
We're on the far side of Tierra Bomba, 25 minutes by boat from the Muelle de la Bodeguita, facing open ocean rather than the bay. That changes the calculation a little. Our sand is volcanic, so it's darker than the white you'll see in the Rosario Islands, and the sea out front has moods: some days flat, some days rolling. In the windier months the crossing can be choppy without being alarming.
The rhythm here is weekly more than seasonal. Midweek is quiet whatever the month. Weekends get louder, and on Saturdays the pool side runs hot from 1 to 5 with a good chunk of Cartagena coming out for it. So if you're choosing between a wet Tuesday and a bright Sunday, the Tuesday may well be the better day for the kind of trip you're describing to us in the enquiry.
The beach club is open to day visitors from 11am to 6pm, boats leave us at 4pm and 5:30pm, and a day pass with transfers is $40. If you'd rather stay put, full board with all food and soft drinks is $90 per person per night.
So, when should you come?
If the weather has to be right: February or March. If you want the best trade between weather, price and space: April. If you want the city at full volume and you don't mind rain: the second week of November. If someone offers you a cheap October flight and you have a week rather than a weekend, take it, and plan indoor mornings.
Whichever you pick, message us before you book flights and we'll tell you honestly what that week usually looks like. See you on the boat.