My friend texted me last week asking when she should visit. I started typing and the message turned into a novel because there’s no simple answer and anyone who gives you one is either lying or hasn’t actually lived here through a full calendar year.

So here’s the long version. I’m going to be blunt because you’re not paying me to be polite about July.

January and February are grey, rainy, and around 8 to 12 degrees. The sea’s about 14 degrees, which is swimmable only if you’re Scandinavian or trying to prove something to yourself. The Old Town is genuinely empty though. Like, creepy empty sometimes. Half the restaurants close. But hotels that charge 400 euros in August are suddenly 80 to 120, and the city walls with nobody on them hit different. The stone has this quality in low winter light that I can’t quite describe — warmer somehow, even when it’s cold. We don’t run boats in January or February. Too unpredictable.

March starts cool, maybe 12 to 16 degrees, still rainy. April gets nicer — 15 to 19, starting to actually feel Mediterranean. The sea barely cracks 16 by late April. Tour groups trickle in but nothing overwhelming. Good time for walking the walls without melting, day trips to Cavtat or Ston, hiking Srd. We start our boat season late April if the weather cooperates, but it’s a gamble. I’ve had beautiful April weeks and I’ve had sideways rain for six days straight. Can’t promise anything.

May is when I’d tell my friend to come. And I did tell her that, in approximately fifteen text messages.

The weather switches on. Consistent sun, 20 to 24 degrees, light winds. The sea hits 18, 19, maybe 20 by the end of the month. The water is cold in May. Not unbearable — you’ll survive — but cold enough that most of my guests do the sharp intake of breath thing when they first get in, look at me like I’ve betrayed them, then five minutes later refuse to get out. Cruise ships are back but not at peak frequency. Hotels are 30 to 40 percent cheaper than July. You get summer weather at shoulder-season prices. Sunj Beach on Lopud with ten people on it instead of five hundred? That’s May.

May is also my favourite month on the water personally. The sea’s calm, the light has this softness that disappears by mid-June, and the islands feel like they’re still waking up. There’s a particular morning in late May every year — I can never predict which day — when the water goes completely glass-flat and the sky turns this pale gold colour and everything is so still you can hear church bells from Lopud while you’re anchored off Kolocep. I live for that morning.

June is proper summer. Twenty-five to thirty degrees, sea temperature around 22 to 24. The odd thunderstorm rolls through but burns off fast. The Old Town fills up by mid-morning and empties out again in the afternoon heat when everyone retreats to air conditioning or the beach. Early mornings and evenings are beautiful. Book accommodation early because prices jump mid-June and availability gets thin.

Now. July and August.

I’m not going to sugarcoat this. It’s hot. Thirty to thirty-six degrees, sometimes higher, and the humidity can be genuinely brutal. Your gelato melts before you get the second lick. The sea is 25 to 27 degrees, which sounds lovely until you realise it means it’s not even refreshing anymore — it’s like getting into a warm bath. Cruise ships unload thousands of people daily. Stradun at midday feels like a train station. The queue for city walls can hit forty-five minutes. Everything costs maximum.

If you’re coming in July or August — and plenty of people do because it’s school holidays, I get it — the best advice I can give is stay off land during the middle of the day. Get on the water. Go to a beach. Go to an island. Be anywhere except the Old Town between 11 and 5. Then come back for dinner when the streets cool down and the day-trippers have gone back to their cruise ships and the city becomes itself again. Book your water activities two, three weeks ahead because we sell out.

September is the other magic month. Early September is still warm — 25 to 28 — and the sea is at its warmest, weirdly. Above 23 for most of the month. But the crowds drop off a cliff after the first week. By mid-September you can walk the walls in relative peace. The light turns amber around 6pm and the coastline looks like an oil painting. Ripe figs everywhere, falling off trees and nobody even picks them up. Boat tours in September have this quality I can’t replicate in any other month.

October is sneakily good. First two weeks you can still get 22 to 25 degree days and swim in water around 20 to 22. Some seasonal places close mid-month, which is a shame. By late October the rain’s coming in and the temperature drops to 16 to 20. But early October — genuinely underrated. Glassy seas, nobody around, that low autumn sun. Some of my best days on the water happen in the first two weeks of October.

November and December cool off properly. November’s about 13 to 17 with frequent rain. December is 9 to 13. But December has the Dubrovnik Winter Festival — Christmas markets inside the medieval walls, mulled wine, light installations, live music. It’s a completely different city. Charming in a way I wasn’t expecting the first time I experienced it. I’d moved here in the summer thinking I knew the place. December proved me wrong.

If I had to distil all of this down: late May or September. That’s the sweet spot. Summer experience, fraction of the chaos.

For swimming specifically, late June through September. For your wallet, January or February. For water activities — boat tours, island hopping — we run from May through mid-October at Mala Mara. Every month within that window has its own personality. A sunset cruise in September light is a fundamentally different experience than the same route in June. Both good. Different good.

Whatever month you pick, get on the water at least once. That’s not me selling you something. That’s genuinely the best piece of Dubrovnik advice I’ve got.