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Photo by Tuxyso, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Big Sur in May
goodbusy · a good time to go
The year in Big Sur
Tap a month for its page
- JanJBig Sur in January: ok
- FebFBig Sur in February: good
- MarMBig Sur in March: good
- AprABig Sur in April: sweet spot
- MayMBig Sur in May: good, busy
- JunJBig Sur in June: good, busy
- JulJBig Sur in July: good, busy
- AugABig Sur in August: sweet spot
- SepSBig Sur in September: sweet spot
- OctOBig Sur in October: sweet spot
- NovNBig Sur in November: good
- DecDBig Sur in December: ok
- Sweet spot
- Good
- OK
- Avoid
- Busy
Plan this trip
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Flights from
Flights
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Where are you flying from? Choose your city for its flights and fares.
Book with the airline
Where to stay
Book direct
Luxury
Things to do
Car hire
Rent direct
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.
Mobile data (eSIM)
Your own plan's EU roaming may already cover this.
Renting a pocket Wi-Fi is the other common way to stay connected.
These are sites people in book with. Each opens in a new tab, on the site's own pages.
The numbers
| Daily high | 17°C |
|---|---|
| Nightly low | 11°C |
| Feels like, afternoon | 16°C |
| Rainy days, 1 mm or more | 2 · 28 mm |
| Humidity | 77% |
| Sunshine | 12.5 h/day |
| Daylight | 14.1 h/day |
| Hiking | 29 of 31 days dry and 10–27 °C good |
| Crowds | 65 / 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 Big Sur Village: 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.
Big Sur in pictures
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King of Hearts, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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King of Hearts, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
What to pack
- Warm layers for the evenings, which drop to about 11°C.
- Sun protection: about 13 hours of sunshine a day.
- Humidity averages 77%; breathable fabrics dry faster.
Each line is a threshold over the ten-year figures above, not advice from anywhere else.
Before you go
Type A and B plugs at 120 V. Drives on the right. The currency is the United states dollar. No UK Foreign Office advice against travel. Global Affairs Canada: Exercise normal security precautions. Everything for United States: cost of living, languages, emergency numbers and health.
On arrival in Big Sur: the apps, paying, getting around, tipping and the emergency numbers.
May elsewhere
In May from
The other months at Big Sur
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