Best time to visit Joshua Tree

United States · North America

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

The year in Joshua Tree

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Sweet spot
Good
OK
Avoid
Busy

Good for

Hiking Nov–Mar

Go in Apr or May — 31C max, 0 rainy days. Oct is the next best.

Plan this trip

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Flights

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Where to stay

Things to do

Car hire

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

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	16°	2d	42%	8.9h	good	16C max, 2 rainy days
Feb	18°	2d	37%	9.6h	goodbusy	busier than usual
Mar	21°	2d	35%	11.0h	goodbusy	busier than usual
Apr	27°	0d	26%	12.3h	sweet spot	27C max, 0 rainy days
May	31°	0d	24%	13.2h	sweet spot	31C max, 0 rainy days
Jun	37°	0d	19%	13.7h	avoid	extreme heat: 21 days over 35C
Jul	40°	0d	22%	13.5h	avoid	extreme heat: 30 days over 35C
Aug	39°	0d	24%	12.6h	avoid	extreme heat: 29 days over 35C
Sep	34°	0d	27%	11.6h	avoid	extreme heat: 14 days over 35C
Oct	28°	0d	25%	10.8h	good	28C max, 0 rainy days
Nov	21°	1d	32%	9.6h	good	21C max, 1 rainy day
Dec	16°	2d	40%	8.5h	okbusy	busier than usual

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

Weather read at Twentynine Palms, by the north entrance: 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, March and December; quietest from July to September.

Then and now

Joshua Tree's August days now average 38.7°C, 2.6°C warmer than in 1981–1990. 3 of 12 months are clearly warmer.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
1981–90	15.4°	17.8°	21.3°	26.2°	30.7°	36.1°	37.7°	36.1°	32.7°	26.4°	19.3°	14.6°
2017–26	15.9°	18.0°	21.5°	26.6°	30.5°	36.8°	39.6°	38.7°	34.4°	27.9°	20.7°	16.3°
Change	+0.5°	+0.2°	+0.2°	+0.5°	-0.2°	+0.7°	+1.9°	+2.6°	+1.7°	+1.5°	+1.4°	+1.7°

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

Fly into Palm Springs (PSP), then drive. The flights under Where to book are to Palm Springs.

The drive from each airport is the road's, from openrouteservice.org by HeiGIT: typical, not a schedule.

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

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. Everything for United States: cost of living, languages, emergency numbers and health.

Being there

On arrival

Paying — Cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay work almost everywhere, though a few small places take cash only. Keep some $1 and $5 notes for tips; Venmo and PayPal are for locals.
UPI, for visitors from India — Not accepted for paying here; bring a card that works abroad.
Tipping — Expected: 15–20% in sit-down restaurants (18–20% is standard in New York) and 10–20% for taxi, Uber and Lyft drivers. Large groups may find it already on the bill.

Getting around Joshua Tree

Apps — Rides: Lyft, Uber. Maps: Google Maps, Apple Maps. Messages: Text messages (SMS), WhatsApp. In San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami and some other cities you can also book a driverless Waymo in its own app.

Help

Emergency — 911 (any emergency).
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 7 October 2026. Apps, cards and rules change, so check before you rely on one.

Sources (50)

Joshua Tree in pictures

Joshua Tree National Park 2013 — i

Tuxyso, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Joschua Tree National Park Rock formation near Barker Dam 2013 — i

Tuxyso, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Joshua Tree National Park (California, USA) 2012 5689 — i

Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Joshua Tree National Park December 2013 003 — i

King of Hearts, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Joshua Tree National Park (California, USA) 2012 5649 — i

Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What Joshua Tree is like

Joshua Tree is a village in south central San Bernardino County in the California Desert, on the northern boundary of the Joshua Tree National Park. More on Wikivoyage

Worth seeing: World Famous Crochet Museum, 61855 Hwy 62. 24/7. Art Walk / Art Gallery. More on Wikivoyage
Getting in: Most visitors will arrive by car on California State Route 62, which runs east-west through the Morongo Basin, west from the Palm Springs area and Yucca Valley, and east from Twentynine Palms and the Arizona state line. More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Joshua Tree, 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 Joshua Tree

Also in United States

Nearby

Kind of place

Deserts

Joshua Tree is in United States, North America. Distances are great-circle, so a short one can still be a long way round.

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