Whale watching season by month: where to go in every month

Whale watching season is not one season. It is two, six months apart, plus a handful of places where resident whales ignore the calendar entirely. Pick the month you can actually travel and the list below names three to five places that are at or near their best in it.

Read the month, not the season name. A brochure that says "summer season" is describing an office schedule; the whales arrive and leave in specific weeks, and the difference between the first week of a season and its peak is often the difference between one distant blow and a morning of close encounters.

The two hemispheres, side by side

Each ring below is one continent scored from off to peak across twelve months. The northern rows fill in the middle of the year, the southern rows at the ends — and Asia runs on its own monsoon-driven timetable, which is why Sri Lanka peaks when Europe is closed.

1. North America
2. Europe
3. Australia & Oceania
4. Africa
5. Asia
6. Latin America

PeakGoodPossibleOff

Feeding seasons drive the pattern: whales eat in cold water in their own hemisphere's summer and breed in warm water in its winter, so the northern and southern rings are roughly six months out of phase.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
North America	Good	Good	Good	Good	Good	Peak	Peak	Peak	Peak	Good	Possible	Good
Europe	Possible	Possible	Possible	Good	Good	Peak	Peak	Peak	Peak	Good	Possible	Possible
Australia & Oceania	Possible	Possible	Possible	Possible	Good	Peak	Peak	Peak	Peak	Peak	Good	Possible
Africa	Off	Off	Off	Off	Possible	Good	Peak	Peak	Peak	Peak	Good	Possible
Asia	Peak	Peak	Peak	Good	Good	Good	Good	Good	Possible	Possible	Good	Peak
Latin America	Good	Good	Good	Possible	Possible	Good	Peak	Peak	Peak	Peak	Good	Good

Months	Northern hemisphere	Southern hemisphere
Dec–Feb	Breeding: Hawaii, Baja, Samaná. Orcas in Norway	Resident whales only: Kaikōura, Tenerife, Madeira
Mar–May	Migration north: California, the Azores, Iceland opening	Quiet; Valdés emptying
Jun–Aug	Feeding peak: Iceland, Alaska, Cape Cod, the St. Lawrence	Season opening: Hervey Bay, Sydney, Hermanus
Sep–Nov	Season closing: Iceland, Alaska; Norway restarting	Peak: Hermanus, Valdés, Hervey Bay, Warrnambool

Where these months come from

Season dates on this page are the ones the responsible authority publishes, not a consensus of brochures.

• Hawaii: the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary says that "from November through April, visitors to the sanctuary can see whales from shore and at sea", with the peak in the middle of that window.
• Monterey: the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary puts gray whales migrating south "in December and February" and cow–calf pairs nearshore "March through May", humpbacks "start arriving in March… and can be seen throughout the summer into November", and blue whales offshore in summer.
• Cape Cod: Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary states that "most companies offer trips from the beginning of May until the end of October", with humpbacks starting to arrive in April and critically endangered right whales in Cape Cod Bay in March and April.
• Alaska: the State of Alaska's tourism office gives humpbacks off Juneau "from April through November, with peak viewing time from June through September".
• Baja California: CONANP runs the gray whale observation season in the El Vizcaíno lagoons from mid-December to the end of April, with counts peaking in mid-February.
• Costa Rica: SINAC describes two humpback seasons in Marino Ballena National Park — the northern population from December to April, the southern from July to November — plus resident dolphins all year.
• Península Valdés: the municipality of Puerto Pirámides says boat-based watching "comienza a mediados de Junio y se extiende hasta Diciembre", with courtship groups best between June and September.
• Iceland: IceWhale puts humpbacks in the north from April or May to September or October and minkes in the south from March or April; Visit Reykjavík says whales can be seen year-round but rates May to September the best.
• Azores: Visit Azores says watching is "possible throughout the whole year", with blue whales "easily spotted at the end of the winter" and sperm and sei whales "frequent in the summer".
• Norway: Visit Tromsø gives the orca and humpback season as "usually from the beginning of November until the end of January"; Visit Norway says sperm whales are along the Vesterålen coast "all year round".
• Hervey Bay: the Queensland Government has humpbacks moving north "between May and July", turning south "in July and August", and about a quarter of them entering Hervey Bay "between August and October".
• New South Wales: the state environment department has the whales heading north "throughout June and in the first week of July" and returning south "from around September to November".
• Hermanus: South African Tourism puts southern right whales in Walker Bay "from June to November", calls August and September the peak, and says that "by December the whales are almost all gone".
• Sri Lanka: the Sri Lanka Navy runs its own whale-watching cruises from the south coast "November to April" and from Trincomalee "May to October".

Shoulder months: cheaper, emptier, riskier

The first and last three weeks of any season are the best value in whale watching. Boats are half full, prices soften, and crews have time to talk. What you give up is weather tolerance: an Icelandic trip in the opening weeks is canceled for wind far more often than one at midsummer, and a Patagonian or Norwegian shoulder trip can lose two days in a row.

The rule of thumb that works: in a place with resident whales — Kaikōura, Tenerife, Madeira, Monterey — the shoulder months cost you almost nothing in sightings. In a place built on a migration — Baja, Samaná, Hervey Bay — the shoulder months are exactly when the whales may not be there yet.

Booking around a fixed date

If your dates are locked, work backwards. Find your month above, take the two or three places listed, then open their pages and check the season wheel: a place can be listed in a month and still be at "good" rather than "peak". Where the difference matters we say so on the place page.

Two practical points. Morning departures beat afternoon ones almost everywhere, because wind builds through the day — in Mirissa and Hervey Bay that is the whole difference between a comfortable trip and a rough one. And in peak months, the good boats in small towns sell out days ahead: Húsavík in July, Hervey Bay in August, Samaná in February.

If you have more than one day, keep the second one free rather than booking two trips. A free re-ride is only worth having if you are still in town to use it, and in Iceland, Norway and Patagonia the most common reason for a blank day is wind rather than absent whales. Where a place has two departure points with different weather — Mirissa and Trincomalee, Reykjavík and Húsavík, the south and west coasts of Tenerife — the second one is often sailing when the first is not.

When the calendar does not apply

Six places on the ranked list sail all year: sperm whales at Kaikōura and off Andenes in Norway, resident pilot whales and dolphins off Tenerife and Madeira, the mixed cast over the Monterey Submarine Canyon, and the Azores, where the tourism board says watching is possible in every month. If your travel dates are awkward, these six are the answer, and they are also the cheapest places to see a whale at short notice.

Everywhere else, the arrival and departure weeks shift from year to year with water temperature and prey. Treat this calendar as the typical published pattern, not a timetable, and read the field guide if you are planning around one particular whale rather than one particular month.