How we rate destinations — and what our numbers don't tell you
Where our climate data, cost estimates and safety tiers come from, how the flight figures are calculated, and an honest account of the limits of all of it.
Any site that puts a number next to a city owes you an explanation of where that number came from. This is ours, including the parts that are genuinely approximate.
Climate: long-term averages, not forecasts
Every temperature and rainfall figure on Fairweather is a long-term monthly average — the typical pattern built from decades of observations, not a prediction for your dates. We chart the average daily high rather than a day-night blend, because that is the number that describes what being outside will feel like.
What this cannot do is tell you about your specific week. Averages describe the odds, not the outcome. Use them to choose the month, then check a real forecast a few days out.
Prime months: where good weather and low rain overlap
The gold months on each city chart are the ones where comfortable temperatures and low rainfall coincide — the weeks a resident would tell you to come. The paler months are still good bets with a minor compromise: slightly hotter, slightly wetter, or slightly cooler than ideal.
This is a judgement, not a formula handed down from anywhere. It assumes you want to be outdoors and walking. If you are coming to ski, or specifically for a festival, ignore our gold months entirely and follow the event.
Costs: three tiers, and what they include
Each city shows a daily figure at three levels — backpacker, mid-range and comfort. These cover accommodation, food and local transport for one person per day. They do not include flights, which are shown separately, and they do not include big-ticket extras like diving courses or opera tickets.
Treat them as calibrated estimates for comparing cities against each other, not as a quote. The gap between travelling lean and travelling comfortably in the same city is often larger than the gap between two different cities, and that gap is entirely within your control.
Flights: an estimate, and we say so
The return flight figure is calculated from the great-circle distance between your chosen departure airport and the destination, scaled to typical fares. It is deliberately a rough order of magnitude — enough to tell you whether a city is a cheap hop or a serious commitment from where you live.
It is not a live price and does not know about your dates, your airline or a sale. Real fares swing enormously with season and booking window. Always check an actual search before making a decision on the strength of that number.
Safety: four tiers, aimed at ordinary visitors
Our safety rating runs from one to four bars and describes the everyday experience of a visitor going about normal activities: how much attention you need to pay to your belongings, and how comfortable ordinary streets feel after dark. More bars means safer.
It is not a political risk assessment and it is not a substitute for your government's travel advisory, which is the authority you should check before booking anywhere you have doubts about. Where a country has an active conflict or a formal advisory, we flag it separately on the city page rather than folding it into a rating.
What we are not
We are not a booking site and we take no position on which airline or hotel you should use. We do not accept payment from destinations to rank them higher — the gold months are set by the weather data, and no city can buy its way into them.
If you find something on this site that is wrong — a restaurant that closed, a price that has drifted, a rating that does not match your experience — tell us on the contact page. Travel data ages, and the only way it stays honest is if people who were actually there correct it.