When To Visit Puerto Rico And Why?

One of the ques­tions that I’m asked the most is: “when is the best time of the year to vis­it Puer­to Rico”?  And, as much as I hate to use the phrase “it depends”, well, I guess it does depend.

Let me tell you a sto­ry.  Sev­er­al years ago I was work­ing in my office when all of a sud­den the phone rang.  I picked it up and it was this Amer­i­can gen­tle­man (who has since become my great friend) who said he was a fel­low land­scape pho­tog­ra­ph­er.  He said he was look­ing at may images at Puer­to Rico Pho­tog­ra­phy, he liked what he was see­ing and he was inter­est­ed in vis­it­ing the Island.  He also sug­gest­ed that we could go out shoot­ing togeth­er.  Then he popped the big ques­tion: “when is the best time of the year to vis­it Puer­to Rico”?

My ini­tial answer was that Puer­to Rico is a trop­i­cal Island; so it’s pret­ty much beau­ti­ful all year round.  But then I thought about it some more and I qual­i­fied my answer.  Maybe that’s true if all you want to do is bask in the sun sip­ping piña coladas and take in the sites.  But if you’re a pho­tog­ra­ph­er, look­ing to make great images, then there are oth­er fac­tors that you must consider.

This is what the sky looks like under the Sahara Dust

This is what the sky looks like under the Sahara Dust

Puer­to Rico is locat­ed at lat­i­tude 18° 13′ 40.6554” and lon­gi­tude ‑66° 28′ 22.0008”, pret­ty much in the cen­ter of the Caribbean Sea.  That means that the Trade Winds hit the Island from the north­east dur­ing most of the year.  But the oper­a­tive word here is “most”.  Dur­ing the sum­mer months many times the wind changes, and it comes straight from the east.  When that hap­pens the Island is cov­ered in dust from the Sahara Desert, which in turn will mess up your photos.

This is what it looks like during the winter months

This is what it looks like dur­ing the win­ter months

This is some­thing that has gone on for­ev­er, but unless you look at it from a pho­tog­ra­pher’s per­spec­tive you’ll prob­a­bly nev­er put two and two together.

When the Sahara Dust hits the Island the skies turn a milky white, the air becomes hazy and peo­ple with asth­ma can have a real­ly bad day.  This last point has noth­ing to do with pho­tog­ra­phy but it can ruin your vaca­tions real­ly quick.

Of course, this hap­pens in vary­ing degrees.  But if you’re a pho­tog­ra­ph­er, the net effect is that all your pic­tures end up with that dull gray cast that no one likes..

Some­times it can get real­ly bad.  For instance, a cou­ple of years ago I went past the air­port and the haze was so thick that it seemed like the place was burning.

Back to my sto­ry…  At first I did­n’t give this gen­tle­man a firm answer (about the shoot­ing togeth­er part).  After all, we live in try­ing times and you can’t just jump in a car with a stranger car­ry­ing thou­sand of dol­lars worth of pho­to­graph­ic equipment.

So I checked him out online, just to make sure that he was legit, and then I called him back.  I told him that his ques­tion had got­ten me think­ing and that I had dis­cov­ered some­thing inter­est­ing in my own pho­to col­lec­tion of Puer­to Rico: that most of my most beau­ti­ful shots had been made between Novem­ber and March.  And of those five months the best of all was February.

It made per­fect sense.  In Feb­ru­ary the trade winds hit the Island from the north­east, the tem­per­a­ture goes down to around 80° F (some­times low­er) and the skies are so blue and pris­tine that they make your eyes hurt.  It’s won­der­ful!!!  Besides, if you live in Europe or the north­ern part of the Unit­ed States, just think of the alter­na­tive: shov­el­ing snow, lousy dri­ving con­di­tions, bone-chill­ing weath­er… Ugh!

But there’s more.  Puer­to Ricans usu­al­ly go on vaca­tion dur­ing the sum­mer months; usu­al­ly dur­ing the months of July and August.  That means that most beach­es and tourist spots are going to be packed dur­ing those months.

So that brings us to my ini­tial answer: “it depends”.  If you love the hot sum­mer weath­er, the crowds, and you don’t mind a lit­tle dust in the atmos­phere, then come right over.  The more the mer­ri­er.  Or maybe it’s the only time that you have avail­able.  Then hey, it’s a no-brainer.

But if you are any­thing like me, and you like to have places all to your­self (call me self­ish, I don’t care), then the win­ter months will be the best for you.

And one last thing…  If you like street fes­ti­vals then you must come in Jan­u­ary, when the San Sebas­t­ian Street Fies­tas take place.  Every year, on the third week­end of Jan­u­ary, close to half a mil­lion peo­ple crowd the city of Old San Juan to cel­e­brate “Las Fies­tas De La Calle San Sebas­t­ian”, a street fes­ti­val start­ed in the mid 50’s that has been ranked by the Guin­ness Book Of World Records as the largest street fes­ti­val in the world tak­ing place dur­ing the month of January.

You will find street dancers, stilt walk­ers, music, arts and crafts, food, drinks and thou­sands upon thou­sands of fun-lov­ing people.

And what about my friend?  Well, he came to Puer­to Rico for the first time about five years ago dur­ing the month of Feb­ru­ary.  I spent sev­er­al days show­ing him and his wife around the Island.  And since then he has come back every year, always in February.

Enjoy Puer­to Rico,

©2013,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
____________________

Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Pod­cast­er,
Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
Tel. 787–750-0000, Mobile 787–306-1590

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Learn More About Puerto Rico

OLD SAN JUAN Enjoy an adven­ture through cen­turies of history
EL YUNQUE NATIONAL FOREST Explore the only trop­i­cal rain­for­est in the U.S.
LET’S HIT THE BEACH Have fun at one of Puer­to Rico’s world renown beaches.

Orlando Mergal buys all his photo equipment at B&H

Dis­clo­sure of Mate­r­i­al Con­nec­tion: Some of the links in this post are “affil­i­ate links.” This means that if you click on a link and pur­chase an item, I will receive an affil­i­ate com­mis­sion. Regard­less, I only rec­om­mend prod­ucts or ser­vices that I use per­son­al­ly and believe will add val­ue to my read­ers. I am dis­clos­ing this in accor­dance with the Fed­er­al Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Con­cern­ing the Use of Endorse­ments and Tes­ti­mo­ni­als in Advertising.”

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