Best time to visit Timor-Leste

Things to do in Timor-Leste…

Timor-Leste is part of the Coral Triangle, so good scuba diving is plentiful, including offshore from the capital, Dili, and around remote Jaco Island. The cream of the crop is Ataúro Island, which has incredible coral walls and rich marine life, and can be explored on small group diving or marine conservation expeditions. En route from Dili you might see schools of dolphins racing alongside your boat, while from September to December humpbacks and other whale species surface off the coast. For divers and snorkellers, visibility peaks at the tail end of the dry season, in September and October. Unreliable public transport and some crazy driving conditions can make Timor-Leste difficult to travel around. While people do travel independently here, we recommend that you join a small group or tailor made tour. You’ll travel in a private vehicle and enjoy the services of tour leader or an expert local guide, reducing the chances of anything going wrong and ensuring that if it does, help is close at hand. Remnants of and monuments to Timor-Leste’s rich history are strewn throughout the country, from millennia-old cave paintings, to faded architecture from the country’s time as a Portuguese colony. You should also take time to get to grips with the country’s recent troubled past while you’re here. Learn about the 24-year fight for independence from Indonesia at the Resistance Museum in Dili, visit the Santa Cruz Cemetery, where over 250 civilians were massacred by Indonesian soldiers in 2001, or visit the city’s Chega! Museum, set in old Portuguese prison cells where resistance leaders were once locked up.

Why go to Timor-Leste?

Tips from Aled Evans, from our supplier Undiscovered Destinations:
“Despite having a tragic history in the recent past, as a young nation the country has moved and is looking forward. There is a lot of development on infrastructure, health, education and employment which has been prioritised by consecutive governments. Timor-Leste may seem a bit of a ‘wild west’ or ‘wild east’ rather. Traditional dwellings and culture stretch back through the eons of time, and it’s engaging to be somewhere relatively untouched by modern trappings. This is changing, though, and highways are being built and the modern world is beginning to encroach on village life everywhere. If you want to see Timor-Leste while it’s still young and at the beginning of a transformation, now is the time to visit.”