Best time to visit Gqeberha

South Africa · Africa

All twelve months scored on daily temperature, rainfall, humidity and holiday crowding.

The year in Gqeberha

Tap a month for its page

Sweet spot
Good
OK
Avoid
Busy

Go in Jan, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Sep, Oct or Nov — these months score within a whisker of each other; 21C max, 5 rainy days. Feb is the next best.

Plan this trip

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

Flights

Choose where you fly from

Where to stay

Things to do

Car hire

Rent direct

Travel insurance

SafetyWing Ad

Mobile data (eSIM)

Each opens in a new tab, on the site's own pages.

Things to do in Gqeberha

Donkin Memorial Four-sided stone pyramid in South Africa
Horse Memorial Provincial heritage site in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape, South Africa
Kragga Kamma Game Park You can either sleep in the camp or take self drives during the day.
St Mary's Cathedral, Port Elizabeth Anglican cathedral
Red Location Museum Museum in South Africa
Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum A selection of South African art, especially from the Eastern Cape.
St George's Park Multi-use park in Gqeberha, South Africa

Tours and tickets in Gqeberha

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 (Port Elizabeth), 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.

Month by month

No fare history for this route yet, so this ranking is climate and crowds only — the price column will fill in as the scanner collects.

Month	Max °C	Rain days	Humidity	Sun h/day	Verdict	Why
Jan	24°	3d	77%	11.6h	sweet spot	24C max, 3 rainy days
Feb	24°	3d	78%	11.2h	goodbusy	busier than usual
Mar	24°	4d	79%	10.3h	good	24C max, 4 rainy days
Apr	22°	4d	77%	9.3h	sweet spot	22C max, 4 rainy days
May	21°	4d	74%	9.0h	sweet spot	21C max, 4 rainy days
Jun	20°	4d	67%	8.5h	sweet spot	20C max, 4 rainy days
Jul	19°	5d	67%	8.8h	sweet spot	19C max, 5 rainy days
Aug	19°	5d	70%	9.7h	goodbusy	busier than usual
Sep	19°	5d	74%	9.8h	sweet spot	19C max, 5 rainy days
Oct	20°	6d	75%	10.7h	sweet spot	20C max, 6 rainy days
Nov	21°	5d	75%	11.8h	sweet spot	21C max, 5 rainy days
Dec	23°	4d	76%	12.1h	goodbusy	busier than usual

Rain days are the days with at least 1 mm of rain, as a weather station counts them.

Weather read at Summerstrand, on the bay: 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

Busiest in February, August and December; quietest in January, April and May.

Then and now

Gqeberha's March days now average 23.7°C, 1.3°C warmer than in 1981–1990. 6 of 12 months are clearly warmer.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
1981–90	23.5°	23.4°	22.4°	21.5°	20.6°	18.9°	18.5°	18.7°	18.9°	19.3°	20.6°	22.2°
2017–26	24.2°	24.3°	23.7°	21.8°	21.1°	20.1°	19.2°	18.8°	19.4°	20.2°	21.3°	22.8°
Change	+0.7°	+0.9°	+1.3°	+0.4°	+0.5°	+1.1°	+0.7°	+0.1°	+0.5°	+0.9°	+0.7°	+0.6°

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.

Getting there

How far Gqeberha is, and what it costs, depends on where you set off from — the months above do not.

Before you go

Type C and D plugs at 230 V. Drives on the left. The currency is the Rand. No UK Foreign Office advice against travel. Everything for South Africa: cost of living, languages, emergency numbers and health.

Being there

On arrival

Paying — Cards are accepted almost everywhere and some places take no cash; contactless works in city chains and cafés. Carry small cash for tips, car guards and petrol attendants.
UPI, for visitors from India — Not accepted for paying here; bring a card that works abroad.
Tipping — About 10% in restaurants is expected; give petrol attendants and uniformed car guards a few rand.

Getting around Gqeberha

Apps — Rides: Bolt, Uber. Maps: Google Maps, Apple Maps. Messages: WhatsApp.

All the national car rental agencies have offices in the city. CABS Car hire, 90A Hugh Road, Walmer. More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Port Elizabeth, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Help

Emergency — police 10111 · ambulance and fire 10177. From a mobile, 112 reaches all of them.
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.

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 (19)

Gqeberha in pictures

South Africa Port Elizabeth (16277424318) — i

Diriye Amey from Locarno, Switzerland, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Port Elizabeth City Hall, front facade — i

Martinvl, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What Gqeberha is like

very clean Port Elizabeth (PE), officially Gqeberha since 2021 (though this name is rarely used), is South Africa's fifth largest city. It is on the Indian Ocean coast half-way between Cape Town and Durban, in the Eastern Cape, about 260 km from Knysna. More on Wikivoyage

Worth seeing: Donkin Reserve. In memory of Rufane Donkin and his wife Elizabeth, after whom the city is named. The lighthouse built in 1861 is open to the public. More on Wikivoyage
Worth doing: Cricket: St George's Park, off Park Drive. South Africa's oldest Test ground, first hosting a Test match in 1889. More on Wikivoyage
Getting in: Chief Dawid Stuurman Airport (formerly Port Elizabeth Airport PLZ IATA) (about 2 miles (3.2 km) south of the city's central business district, it is often called the "ten-minute airport" because it is said to be less… More on Wikivoyage
Staying safe: Media reports state that Gqeberha has one of the highest murder rates in the world. More on Wikivoyage
Staying healthy: Signs in hotels and at the airport recommend against drinking the tap water. More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Port Elizabeth, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; the full article has far more. The numbers above are measured; this is experience.

Around Gqeberha

Also in South Africa

Nearby

Kind of place

Gqeberha is in South Africa, Africa. Distances are great-circle, so a short one can still be a long way round.

Links marked Ad pay us a commission if you book through one, at no extra cost to you. That does not affect the scores on this page, which are computed from climate and fare data before any link is built.