What Is The Best Time to Visit Sapa?

Thanks to its high altitude, Sapa is an ideal location for summer retreats during the overheated summer time and the scarcely populated town also has pretty fresh air. The climate of Sapa is highly seasonal, with a subtropical climate in the summer and a temperate climate during the winter.

The average temperature for Sapa town is 15.4ºC, with a maximum of 29.4ºC and a minimum of 1ºC. The warmest months are July and August, and the coldest months are December and January. While trips can be enjoyed all year round, the winters in Sapa get cold, with some fog, drizzle, and snowfalls in some years on the highest peaks.

Check what to prepare for traveling Sapa in winter



The four seasons come distinctly to Sapa when Nature changes her costume. Spring is bright with pear, peach, apricot, and plum flowers. Summer comes and blooms with pansies, dahlias, sunflowers, and numerous tropical fruits. Autumn is the time for perfume mushrooms, wood ear mushrooms, and plenty of specious medicinal plants,… The sky is vividly brightened with golden sunrays and playful white clouds which seem to land on the ground, over the heads of people, or on the tops of trees. In winter, fog filled the space, making the landscapes look more mysterious and attractive.



Sapa also experiences a marked wet season from May to September, with the heaviest rainfall occurring in July and August. The weather is notorious for changing frequently and quickly. Visitors to Sapa in summer can feel the climate of all four seasons in one day. In the morning and afternoon, it is cool like spring and autumn. At noon, it is as sunny and cloudless as in summer. And it is also cold in the evening. With no advance warning of a thunderstorm short and heavy rains may come at noon on any summer day. Subsequently, a rainbow appears, transforming Sapa into a magic land, which has been a constant source of poetic inspiration for years, and lights up the whole region.

The best time to visit Sapa is March and May or from mid-August to early December.

In April and May, the ethnic people grow rice in terraced fields. When seen from afar, the terraced rice fields look like a picture of nature with heart-catching beauty keeping tourists to stay for admiration for a while. This picture however has its color changed seasonally and shows its most charming appearance when the new crop begins and when the field is lush with ripening rice.



In August and October when autumn ends, tourists can feel prosperity all over the area as rice in all terraced fields is ripe and turn to yellow color. During this time, the terraced rice fields look like golden silk scarves flying over in the wind above green mountain slopes, making the mountainous landscape amazingly beautiful.

Read more: Best Time to Visit Rice Terraces in Sapa




From late December to February, Sapa has a harsh winter with the temperature sometimes dropping to below zero degrees which makes tree branches and grass covered with ice. Sa Pa on icy days always attracts many tourists and photographers to the most beautiful pictures of wintertime in Sapa. In recent years, snow falls at the end of December which is a great time for a Christmas holiday and New Year vacation. Traveling to Sapa at this time, visitors may contemplate beauty-spot as breath-taking as in the picture described in the Snow Queen fairy tale of Andersen.