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Photo by Matti Blume, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Basel in May
sweet spot · one of the best months to go
The year in Basel
Tap a month for its page
- JanJBasel in January: avoid
- FebFBasel in February: ok
- MarMBasel in March: ok
- AprABasel in April: sweet spot
- MayMBasel in May: sweet spot
- JunJBasel in June: sweet spot
- JulJBasel in July: sweet spot, busy
- AugABasel in August: sweet spot, busy
- SepSBasel in September: sweet spot
- OctOBasel in October: good
- NovNBasel in November: avoid
- DecDBasel in December: avoid, busy
- Sweet spot
- Good
- OK
- Avoid
- Busy
Plan this trip
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Where to stay
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Travel insurance
Check whether your bank card or home insurance already covers this trip.
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Mobile data (eSIM)
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Renting a pocket Wi-Fi is the other common way to stay connected.
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The numbers
| Daily high | 19°C |
|---|---|
| Nightly low | 9°C |
| Feels like, afternoon | 19°C |
| Rainy days, 1 mm or more | 12 · 98 mm |
| Humidity | 73% |
| Sunshine | 10.4 h/day |
| Daylight | 15.1 h/day |
| Crowds | 100 / 100, higher is quieter |
Ten-year averages for this calendar month. A rainy day is one with at least 1 mm of rain, as a weather station counts it. The model these figures come from drizzles more than a rain gauge, the more so the warmer the month, so its days count from 2 mm, rising to 5 mm in the hottest.
Weather read at the Old Town, 7 km from the airport (BSL): ten years of ERA5 and ERA5-Land reanalysis, through Open-Meteo's open data.
How busy it gets
Public holidays in May
Holidays crowd a place out and push fares up around them; they count toward the crowd score above.
Basel in pictures
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Matti Blume, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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Ermell, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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Ermell, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
What to pack
- Warm layers for the evenings, which drop to about 9°C.
- Rain gear you will actually use: about 12 rainy days and 98 mm.
- Sun protection: about 10 hours of sunshine a day.
Each line is a threshold over the ten-year figures above, not advice from anywhere else.
Before you go
Type C plugs at 230 V. Drives on the right. The currency is the Swiss franc. No UK Foreign Office advice against travel. Global Affairs Canada: Exercise normal security precautions. US State Department: Level 1: Exercise Normal Precautions. Everything for Switzerland: cost of living, languages, emergency numbers and health.
On arrival in Basel: the apps, paying, getting around, tipping and the emergency numbers.
May elsewhere
In May from
The other months at Basel
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