Weather & Time Zones

The world’s largest archipelago, Indonesia boasts diverse cultures, dazzling natural scenery, and of course, tantalizing food. Stunning pristine beaches with white sands and surrounding active volcanoes will absolutely come to your mind when imagining this country. However, hold back your vacation desire. On top of all this, a tourist should notice important things about this country before having a visit, especially weather and time zones.  

Indonesia is located right in the middle of the equator and this condition puts the country as a tropical country with sunlight all year-round. Different from sub-tropical countries, such as in those in Europe, tropical country has only two seasons, hot or dry, and rain or wet. The dry season in Indonesia usually spans from May to September. Meanwhile, wet season occurs between October and April with rainfall occurring in short, heavy bursts. However, the seasons’ period is not exact, and it sometimes changes due to meteorological conditions.

Weather

Among the two seasons, dry season is the most popular and most comfortable time for tourists to visit. In dry season, the average temperature is around 28°-34°C (82°-93°F) at noon, which is quite hot and it will get slightly cooler at night, about 21°-25°C (70°-77°F). Meanwhile, in wet or rain season, the rainfall is quite high and the temperature is rather cooler than dry season, averaging 24°-28°C (75°-82°F) at noon, but warmer than dry season at night, 23°-26°C (73°-79°F).

One thing a tourist should pay attention to while traveling in Indonesia is humidity. Compared to sub-tropical countries, Indonesia is a country with high level of humidity. In average, humidity in Indonesia ranges from 60-90 percent. That level of humidity plus the vast area of rainforest are suitable home for various types of animals, such as mosquitos, poisonous insects and reptiles, wild animals and so on. So, tourists are suggested to apply some kind of mosquito repellent or anything to shoo away insects and bugs.

Travel Distance

Despite its strategic geographic location in the middle of the equator, Indonesia is quite far from western countries, except Australia and New Zealand – both that are neighboring countries in the south part of the continent. On average, when you fly from Western Europe, it would take about 15 hours to Indonesia and about 10 hours from Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, when you travel from most part of US, it would take about 20 hours to get to Indonesia.

Time Zones

Geographically, Indonesia is very large country that comprises more than 17.000 islands that stretch from East to West and is a home for 240 million people. Given the large area, Indonesia is divided into 3 time zones:

  • WIB (GMT +7) – Waktu Indonesia Barat/Western Indonesia Time
  • WITA (GMT +8) – Waktu Indonesia Tengah/Central Indonesia Time
  • WIT (GMT+9) – Waktu Indonesia Timur/Eastern Indonesia Time

The time difference between WIB, WITA, and WIT is 1 hour respectively. WIB time zone includes most of western part of Indonesia, such as Sumatra, Java, West Kalimantan, and Central Kalimantan. WITA time zones include Sulawesi, Lesser Sunda Islands, North Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, and East Kalimantan, while WIT covers only Maluku and Papua.