Best time to visit Kyoto

Japan · East Asia

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

The year in Kyoto

Tap a month for its page

Sweet spot
Good
OK
Avoid
Busy

Go in May, Jun or Sep — these months score within a whisker of each other; 27C max, 10 rainy days. Apr is the next best.

Plan this trip

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Flights

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Where to stay

Things to do

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Things to do in Kyoto

Fushimi Inari Taisha Another of Kyoto's jewels, located just south of Higashiyama in the Fushimi area.
Kiyomizu Temple This temple complex, with its spectacular location overlooking the city…
Kinkaku-ji Temple The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, formally known as Rokuonji (鹿苑寺)…
Kyoto Imperial Palace The palace is a reconstruction (dating from 1855)…
Nijō Castle Certainly one of the highlights of Kyoto…
Fushimi Momoyama Castle This castle was once a favorite of Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
Tenryū-ji One of the city's UNESCO World Heritage Sites and the main temple of the Rinzai sect of…

Tours and tickets in Kyoto

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 (Kyoto/Arashiyama, Kyoto/Central, Kyoto/Higashiyama, Kyoto/North, Kyoto/South), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; 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	8°	4d	75%	7.3h	ok	8C max, 4 rainy days
Feb	9°	6d	74%	7.3h	ok	9C max, 6 rainy days
Mar	14°	10d	73%	8.1h	okbusy	busier than usual
Apr	19°	10d	72%	8.4h	goodbusy	busier than usual
May	24°	10d	72%	9.1h	sweet spot	24C max, 10 rainy days
Jun	27°	10d	77%	8.6h	sweet spot	27C max, 10 rainy days
Jul	31°	10d	79%	9.7h	ok	31C max, 10 rainy days
Aug	33°	7d	75%	10.4h	ok	33C max, 7 rainy days
Sep	28°	10d	79%	8.5h	sweet spot	28C max, 10 rainy days
Oct	22°	11d	78%	7.6h	ok	22C max, 11 rainy days
Nov	16°	5d	78%	7.9h	good	16C max, 5 rainy days
Dec	11°	6d	77%	7.3h	ok	11C max, 6 rainy days

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

Weather read at Gion: 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 April; quietest in January and February.

Then and now

Kyoto's March days now average 13.8°C, 2.6°C warmer than in 1981–1990. 12 of 12 months are clearly warmer.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
1981–90	6.8°	7.2°	11.2°	17.6°	21.9°	25.4°	28.6°	30.5°	26.3°	20.1°	14.8°	9.6°
2017–26	8.2°	9.2°	13.8°	18.8°	23.5°	26.9°	31.1°	32.7°	28.4°	22.0°	16.5°	10.5°
Change	+1.4°	+2.0°	+2.6°	+1.2°	+1.6°	+1.5°	+2.6°	+2.2°	+2.1°	+1.9°	+1.7°	+0.9°

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 Osaka (KIX), then drive. The flights under Where to book are to Osaka.

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

How far Kyoto 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 100 V. Drives on the left. The currency is the Yen. No UK Foreign Office advice against travel. Everything for Japan: cost of living, languages, emergency numbers and health.

Being there

On arrival

Paying — Cards are widely taken in cities, but carry cash for small restaurants, inns and rural areas. Suica and PASMO also pay in many shops, and PayPay QR codes are common.
UPI, for visitors from India — Not accepted for paying here; bring a card that works abroad.
Tipping — Not done in restaurants or taxis; some hotels and restaurants add a 10% service charge.

Getting around Kyoto

Tap an IC card such as ICOCA, Suica or PASMO on city buses and at subway gates; buses also take cash but no bank cards, and the subway takes no credit cards. A bus ride in the flat-fare zone costs 230 yen, paid as you get off at the front; the subway costs 220 to 360 yen; the Subway & Bus 1-Day Pass, 1,100 yen from subway stations and on buses, lasts for the day you first use it. From Kansai Airport, JR's HARUKA limited express runs direct to Kyoto: its discounted one-way ticket for visitors (2,200 yen) is not sold in Japan, so buy it online or from an agent abroad and collect it with your passport.

Apps — Rides: GO, DiDi, S.RIDE, Uber. Maps: Google Maps, Apple Maps. Messages: LINE. Ride apps here hail ordinary licensed taxis; private-car rideshare is limited to small trials.

The sheer size of the city of Kyoto, and the distribution of tourist attractions around the periphery of the city, make the city's public transport system invaluable. More on Wikivoyage

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

Help

Emergency — police 110 · ambulance and fire 119.
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 (21)

Kyoto in pictures

Pedestrian road with pavements and paper umbrellas, Higashiyama ku, Kyoto, Japan, early morning — i

Basile Morin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Katsura River bank with pleasure boat and illuminated building at sunset, Kyoto, Japan — i

Basile Morin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Kiyomizu dera, Kyoto, November 2016 01 — i

Martin Falbisoner, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Kyoto Station November 2016 02 — i

Martin Falbisoner, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Kimono Forest at night, Arashiyama Station, Arashiyama, Kyoto, Japan — i

Yasumichi Morita (designer) Basile Morin (photographer), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What Kyoto is like

However, visitors may be surprised by how much work they will have to do to see Kyoto's beautiful side. More on Wikivoyage

Worth seeing: Kyoto offers an incredible number of attractions for tourists, and visitors will probably need to plan an itinerary in advance in order to visit as many as possible. More on Wikivoyage
Worth doing: Public baths have been a cornerstone of the society for centuries in Kyoto. Noblemen shared baths with commoners and warriors. More on Wikivoyage
Getting in: Kyoto does not have its own airport, but is served by Osaka's two airports, Kansai International and Itami. There is an excellent road and railway network between the two cities. More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Kyoto, 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 Kyoto

Also in Japan

Nearby

Kind of place

Kyoto is in Japan, East Asia. Distances are great-circle, so a short one can still be a long way round.

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