Why now
Prime time in May: 31°C days, sea 28°C.
Outside the hurricane belt it is a year-round island; the northern winter is the busy season and the late-year months are the wettest, with short showers. Carnival closes the island for days, and the Dutch school holidays fill the flights from Amsterdam.
Best months here: February, March, April. May is not one of them — the label above measures the month against a fixed bar, not against the rest of the year here. Daytime highs, sea temperature and rainy days from three years of Open-Meteo reanalysis; a rainy day is one with at least 1 mm of rain, which is the WMO threshold and not the same as "it drizzled". This page stands for a whole country, and its weather is measured at one point — 12.17°, -68.99°, near Willemstad. Somewhere else in Curaçao the numbers will differ.
The place
Curaçao is a dry, cactus-covered Dutch Caribbean island with a UNESCO capital painted in colours, shore diving from almost any cove and a language, Papiamentu, that mixes half a dozen others. It sits outside the hurricane belt and suits divers, people who like a town to walk in the evening, and anyone tired of resort islands.
What you can do
- 01Walk Willemstad's Handelskade and cross the Queen Emma pontoon bridge as it swings open for ships.
- 02Snorkel the tugboat wreck at Caracasbaai and shore-dive at Playa Lagun or Porto Mari.
- 03Drive the west end to Grote Knip beach and the Westpunt cliffs, stopping at the small coves in between.
- 04Eat keshi yena or stoba at the Plasa Bieu market hall in Punda at lunchtime.
- 05See Landhuis Kenepa and the Kura Hulanda museum for the island's plantation and slavery history.
Where to stay · neighbourhoods
Pietermaai for a first visit that mixes town and sea, the west for diving and quiet; the cruise-facing hotels near the harbour are convenient but loud on ship days.
Unusual things
- ◦Shete Boka national park, where Atlantic swells blow into caves and blowholes on the north coast.
- ◦The Hato caves and the Christoffel park's summit trail, the island's high point, walked early before heat.
- ◦Klein Curaçao, an uninhabited islet with a lighthouse and wrecks, a rough two-hour boat ride away.
Day trips
Flight options
Routes come from OpenFlights (historical) and a 2026 route reference compiled from public timetables. Durations are the published schedule where we have it, otherwise a block-time model fitted on measured nonstop flights. Verify schedules with the airline before booking.
Entry requirements · IT passport
Source: passport-index-data, March 2026 (coarse indicator), covering 258 of our 268 destinations for each of 199 passports. Always confirm with the destination's official site.
Airports
Distances are centre to airport derived · nonstop counts are our route reference for 2026, not every flight that exists.
Local transport
- Airport to city
- Taxi, 20 min, ~€30; car recommended
- Car needed?
- Recommended for most of what is worth seeing
- Getting around
- A hire car is the norm; buses exist but are infrequent outside town. The airport is 20 minutes from Willemstad, with direct flights from Amsterdam and several US cities.
- Clock
- 8 hours behind Abu Dhabi (America/Curacao) derived
- Daylight
- 12.7 hours of daylight in May · sunrise 06:12, sunset 18:52 derived
- Currency
- ANG
Good to know
Sea urchins and fire coral are common on the rocky entries, so water shoes help; the north coast is not for swimming.
Alternatives at a similar price
Whole trip per person for 4 days from Abu Dhabi in May, then the flight time; estimates, like the total above.
Lima
New York
Washington DC
Fiji
Hawaii
Los Angeles.jpg){kind=link}