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Photo by Terragio67, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Geneva in January
avoid · not the best time to go · the coolest month of the year
The year in Geneva
Tap a month for its page
- JanJGeneva in January: avoid
- FebFGeneva in February: ok
- MarMGeneva in March: ok
- AprAGeneva in April: sweet spot
- MayMGeneva in May: sweet spot
- JunJGeneva in June: sweet spot
- JulJGeneva in July: sweet spot
- AugAGeneva in August: sweet spot, busy
- SepSGeneva in September: good, busy
- OctOGeneva in October: good
- NovNGeneva in November: avoid
- DecDGeneva in December: avoid
- Sweet spot
- Good
- OK
- Avoid
- Busy
Plan this trip
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Flights
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Where to stay
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Luxury
Things to do
Car hire
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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 | 6°C |
|---|---|
| Nightly low | 0°C |
| Feels like, afternoon | 2°C |
| Rainy days, 1 mm or more | 11 · 110 mm |
| Humidity | 81% |
| Sunshine | 5.7 h/day |
| Daylight | 9.1 h/day |
| Crowds | 80 / 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 lakefront: ten years of ERA5 and ERA5-Land reanalysis, through Open-Meteo's open data.
How busy it gets
Public holidays in January
Holidays crowd a place out and push fares up around them; they count toward the crowd score above.
Geneva in pictures
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Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net)., CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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Benh LIEU SONG, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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Terragio67, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
What to pack
- A proper coat, hat and gloves: nights average -0°C.
- A packable rain jacket for the 11 or so rainy days.
- Humidity averages 81%; breathable fabrics dry faster.
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 Geneva: the apps, paying, getting around, tipping and the emergency numbers.
January elsewhere
In January from
The other months at Geneva
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