Best time to visit Almaty
Kazakhstan · Caucasus and Central Asia
All twelve months scored on daily temperature, rainfall, humidity and holiday crowding.
The year in Almaty
Tap a month for its page
- JanJAlmaty in January: avoid
- FebFAlmaty in February: avoid
- MarMAlmaty in March: ok
- AprAAlmaty in April: sweet spot
- MayMAlmaty in May: good
- JunJAlmaty in June: sweet spot
- JulJAlmaty in July: sweet spot, busy
- AugAAlmaty in August: sweet spot, busy
- SepSAlmaty in September: sweet spot
- OctOAlmaty in October: good
- NovNAlmaty in November: ok
- DecDAlmaty in December: avoid
- Sweet spot
- Good
- OK
- Avoid
- Busy
- Prices thereVery cheap, about 33% of the US
- MoneyKazakhstani tenge
- PlugsType C and F, 220 V
- DrivingOn the right
Book your trip to Almaty
Best in June 28°C · 3 rainy days quiet June in Almaty ›
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Where to stay
Luxury
Things to do
Travel insurance
Check whether your bank card or home insurance already covers this trip.
If the trip needs a visa, the travel agent or visa centre usually sells the cover it asks for.
These are sites people in book with. Each opens in a new tab, on the site's own pages.
Things to do in Almaty
- Ascension Cathedral Completed in 1907 and renovated in the 2020s - new saints were painted in, though presumably they were known to the hagiographers.
- Big Almaty Lake Lake in Kazakhstan
- Central State Museum Displays of Kazakh history, from prehistoric times through the Mongol periods to the present.
- Kok-Tobe Park Small Soviet-esque fun fair perched on a hilltop, where the highlight is getting there on the cable car.
- Museum of Musical Instruments Small museum with fine traditional wooden facade, exhibits have signage in Kazakh, Russian and English.
- Kasteyev Art Museum Huge collection spanning Oriental, Russian and Kazakh arts, the Stakhanovite scenes from Stalin's era are fascinating.
- St Nicholas Cathedral Russian Orthodox church built in 1909.
Tours and tickets in Almaty
Each site opens on its own search: choose your dates there. A few open on their home page, where you type the place too. Links marked Ad pay us a commission if you book, at no extra cost to you; most pay nothing, and what a site pays never decides whether it is listed or where. How we rank
Sights and their lines from Wikivoyage (Almaty), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, and Wikidata; in order of how often each one's Wikipedia article was read on phones in the last 12 months.
Almaty in pictures
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Nikolai Bulykin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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Tisoiso, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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Ds02006, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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Ken and Nyetta User:DarkCorsar, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Month by month
| Month | Max °C | Rain days | Humidity | Sun h/day | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | -1° | 4d | 69% | 6.6h | avoid | bitter cold: -1C daily max |
| Feb | 2° | 6d | 69% | 7.2h | avoid | bitter cold: 2C daily max |
| Mar | 10° | 9d | 66% | 8.3h | ok | 10C max, 9 rainy days |
| Apr | 18° | 9d | 60% | 9.3h | sweet spot | 18C max, 9 rainy days |
| May | 23° | 9d | 56% | 11.1h | good | 23C max, 9 rainy days |
| Jun | 28° | 3d | 45% | 12.1h | sweet spot | 28C max, 3 rainy days |
| Jul | 32° | 2d | 38% | 12.7h | sweet spot busy | busier than usual |
| Aug | 30° | 2d | 38% | 11.8h | sweet spot busy | busier than usual |
| Sep | 24° | 3d | 43% | 10.5h | sweet spot | 24C max, 3 rainy days |
| Oct | 16° | 5d | 54% | 8.5h | good | 16C max, 5 rainy days |
| Nov | 7° | 6d | 64% | 6.6h | ok | 7C max, 6 rainy days |
| Dec | 1° | 5d | 69% | 6.1h | avoid | bitter cold: 1C daily max |
Rain days are the days with at least 1 mm of rain, as a weather station counts them.
Weather read at Panfilov Park, the city centre, 13 km from the airport (ALA): ten years of ERA5 and ERA5-Land reanalysis, through Open-Meteo's open data.
A busy month is a crowded one, not a bad one — usually it is crowded because the weather is good. It is flagged rather than scored down, and crowds alone never make a month “avoid”: that is reserved for weather worth skipping.
How busy it gets
Then and now
Almaty's March days now average 10.4°C, 6.0°C warmer than in 1981–1990. 9 of 12 months are clearly warmer.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1981–90 | -1.3° | -1.1° | 4.4° | 13.2° | 18.9° | 23.7° | 26.9° | 26.3° | 21.3° | 12.5° | 5.2° | 0.4° |
| 2017–26 | -0.5° | 2.4° | 10.4° | 18.0° | 22.7° | 28.2° | 31.7° | 29.9° | 23.8° | 15.6° | 7.0° | 1.2° |
| Change | +0.7° | +3.5° | +6.0° | +4.8° | +3.7° | +4.5° | +4.8° | +3.6° | +2.5° | +3.1° | +1.8° | +0.8° |
The average daily high, month by month, for the nearest ERA5 grid cell. Bold is a clear change; grey is within the ordinary spread between years. Every destination, ranked.
Busy and quiet times in Almaty
I do not have sufficient climate data for Almaty to provide a detailed season profile.
Written by a language model from the climate figures above. The month-by-month table is measured — ten years of ERA5 readings and published holiday calendars — and where the two disagree, the table is the one to believe.
What Almaty is like
Almaty is the largest city and the financial and cultural capital of Kazakhstan. More on Wikivoyage
- Worth seeing
- Ascension Cathedral (Zenkov Cathedral), Gogol 40 (Panfilov Park, Metro Zhibek Zholy). The iconostasis is spectacular. More on Wikivoyage
- Worth doing
- Saunas or banyas are where folk relax and socialise during the miserable cold months. These have different styles eg Moroccan, Nordic or Russian (where half the fun is flagellating yourself with veniki leaves). More on Wikivoyage
- Getting in
- Almaty International Airport (ALA IATA), Maylina 2 (15 km northeast of city centre). Almaty airport is the hub for Central Asia. More on Wikivoyage
- Staying safe
- Beware of traffic, safeguard valuables and take care when drunk, same as anywhere else. People frequently ride E-Scooters on pavements at high speed. More on Wikivoyage
From the Wikivoyage article on Almaty, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; the full article has far more. The numbers above are measured; this is experience.
Getting there
How far Almaty is depends on where you set off from — the months above do not.
- from Delhi
- from Jaipur
- from Lucknow
- from Kathmandu
- from Ahmedabad
- from Kolkata
- from Mumbai
- from Dubai
Open in Rome2rio for every way from to Almaty, flying or not.
Like a local in Almaty
On arrival
- Paying — Contactless cards are widely accepted; most tills are Kaspi or Halyk terminals, whose QR codes are for local apps but which also take cards. Keep small coins, as change is scarce.
- UPI, for visitors from India — Not accepted for paying here; bring a card that works abroad.
Getting around Almaty
On the metro, tap a contactless bank card or phone at the turnstile reader, or buy a 120-tenge token. On buses, tap an Onay card from a Caravan kiosk (120 tenge a ride) or pay the conductor 200 tenge cash.
- Apps — Rides: inDrive, Yandex Go. Maps: 2GIS, Yandex Maps. Messages: WhatsApp, Telegram. If Yandex Go will not install on your phone, Yango is the same service and works here.
The city is laid out on a modern grid-pattern, and "up" usually means south, towards the mountains. However it's a gentle gradient, and in places the gradient east is also upward sloping. More on Wikivoyage
From the Wikivoyage article on Almaty, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Help
- Emergency — 112 (any emergency) · police 102 · ambulance 103 · fire 101.
TravelCharika is not an emergency service: we cannot call for help or send anyone. Numbers can change; if one fails, ask someone local or your hotel.
Your embassy — : how to reach your embassy or consulate abroad. A guess from your city, : a city is not a passport.
Put together by hand from the sources listed, checked 3 October 2026. Apps, cards and rules change, so check before you rely on one.
Sources (13)
- gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/kazakhstan/getting-help
- en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Kazakhstan
- en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Almaty
- metroalmaty.kz/ru/payment
- taxi.yandex.kz/en_kz/almaty/tariff
- indrive.com/en-kz/city-rides
- caravanistan.com/transport/taxi-apps
- caravanistan.com/money/kazakhstan
- caravanistan.com/phone-internet/kazakhstan
- techjury.net/research/market-share-of-messaging-apps-by-country
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2GIS
- pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2286608
- rbidocs.rbi.org.in/rdocs/AnnualReport/PDFs/09PAYMENT290526C6588B796E664822A2BD0DEB6452CAD4.PDF
Before you go
| Cost of living | very cheap — prices run about 33% of the United States' (World Bank, 2025) |
|---|---|
| Currency | Kazakhstani tenge |
| Languages | Kazakh, Russian |
| Plugs | Type C and F, 220 V |
| Driving | On the right |
| Calling code | +7 |
| Travel advice | No advice against travel — UK Foreign Office, updated 2026-10-30 Exercise normal security precautions — Global Affairs Canada, updated 2026-10-15 Level 1: Exercise Normal Precautions — US State Department, updated 2026-08-18 |
| Entry rules | UK Foreign Office, for British travellers Global Affairs Canada, for its own citizens US State Department, for its own citizens |
| Health | UK Foreign Office health advice |
Facts from Wikidata (CC0), the UK Foreign Office (Open Government Licence) and the World Bank, refreshed 2026-10-07. The advisory is written for British travellers; entry rules depend on your passport.Travel advice for American readers is the US State Department's (public domain), and for Canadian readers Global Affairs Canada's (Open Government Licence - Canada), each in its own words and written for its own citizens; entry rules depend on your passport.
A guide, not advice: entry rules change and depend on your passport and your trip, so check the official page before you book.
Around Almaty
Nearby
- Bishkek Kyrgyzstan · 199 km
- Kashgar China · 431 km
- Tashkent Uzbekistan · 667 km
- Dushanbe Tajikistan · 861 km
Routes through here
Kind of place
Almaty is in Kazakhstan, Caucasus and Central Asia. Distances are great-circle, so a short one can still be a long way round.
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