- Apr–Octwhen organised tours run
- 37%of in-season days the wind reaches 20 knots
- 18.5→26.4°Csea from May to August
- Jun & Septhe best all-round balance
- From $55per person
When to Come, and What Each Part of the Season Gives You
Organised boat tours are available from around April to October, with the fullest schedule from June to September. Outside those seven months, only a few private and on-request boats operate. Within the season, what matters is less the month than whether the boat can sail. In the Strait of Bonifacio the wind reaches 20 knots — about 37 km/h — on 37% of days across that season, and operators then reroute or cancel.
There is no single best month: three priorities point at three parts of the season. For the best balance, come in June or September, either side of the July and August peak, with the sea at 23–24°C. For the warmest water, come in July or August, when the sea averages 26°C. For fewer crowds, come in May or October, outside the Italian school holidays; tours still run, on a thinner schedule. The sea is 19°C in May. In October it is 22°C. April is quieter again and tours still run, though at 16°C the sea is too cold to swim.
The wind is the part no month fixes. Even August, the calmest of the seven, hits 20 knots on 32% of days; April, the windiest, on 45%. Pick your month for the water and the crowds, check the forecast for your date, and book the boat early so a cancelled sailing can be moved.
- Best overall balance
- June or September
- Best for swimming
- July or August
- Best for fewer crowds
- May or October
- Best for reaching the outer islands
- No month
- April–October — when organised tours run, fullest June to September
- 37% — in-season days the wind reaches 20 knots, the strength at which boats start rerouting
- 16°C in April, 26°C in August — the sea at its coldest and warmest inside the season
A Boat-Only Archipelago, on a Very Windy Strait
Most of what makes the La Maddalena Archipelago extraordinary — Cala Corsara, the Budelli natural pools, the Pink Beach — sits on uninhabited islands with no road and no public ferry. You reach them by boat, and the boats are seasonal, so timing matters more here than at most Mediterranean destinations.
It governs two separate things, and they are easy to confuse. The month sets how warm the water is, how many people are in the coves and which formats are running. The wind on the day sets whether your boat leaves at all and which islands it reaches — and the second of those is far less predictable from a calendar than most guides suggest.
Check Your Own Date
The season tells you what is running; the forecast tells you whether it sails and how far it gets. This checks both for one date.
Pick a date and this will show the live forecast if it is close enough, or the typical conditions for that time of year if it is not.
- Wind—
- How rough the sea is—
- Sea temperature—
- Air temperature—
- Rain—
La Maddalena by Month: Sea, Wind and What Is Running
Sea temperature is the monthly average of daily highs; the wind column is the share of days on which the wind reaches 20 knots, measured at Météo-France’s Cap Pertusato station in the strait. Sources and their limits are in How we know.
| Month | Sea temp | Windy days | Italian school holidays | Boat tours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| April | 15.8°C | 45% | No | Season opening, limited schedule |
| May | 18.5°C | 40% | No | Building up, thinner choice |
| June | 22.9°C | 39% | From mid-month | Full schedule |
| July | 25.5°C | 38% | Yes | Full schedule, book ahead |
| August | 26.4°C | 32% | Yes, and Ferragosto on 15 August | Full schedule, book weeks ahead |
| September | 24.0°C | 34% | To mid-month | Full schedule |
| October | 21.9°C | 34% | No | Winding down through the month |
| Nov–Mar | 14–19°C | 41–53% | Christmas and Easter only | Organised tours largely paused |
What the columns show. The school-holiday column is a calendar, not a headcount: we have no monthly visitor series for the archipelago, so this page never says how busy a month is, only when Italian demand is highest. The sea column is the strongest seasonal signal here — eight degrees between May and August, which is the difference between a swimming day and a scenic cruise. The wind column is the weakest: it moves by 13 points across the whole season, and it never falls below roughly a third of days. That is the reason this page recommends a month for the water and a forecast check for the day.
Other Experiences You Might Enjoy
Once your dates are set, here's how travellers typically fill out the rest of the trip.
Whatever month you land in, most visitors build their trip around a full-day La Maddalena Archipelago boat tour from Palau — swimming at the Budelli natural pools, sunbathing at Santa Maria, snorkelling at Spargi's Cala Corsara and viewing the Pink Beach from the water. In calmer shoulder-season conditions, a small-group RIB is the best way to also reach Razzoli and the Porto della Madonna natural pools, while catamaran and sailing tours add a Sardinian lunch with wine on board.
If your trip stretches beyond one boat day, pair it with time in La Maddalena town and a walk on Caprera — Garibaldi's island — and, in the height of summer, consider an evening sunset or aperitif cruise off Spargi to avoid the midday heat.
Which Season Actually Suits Your Trip
The same archipelago gives you a different day in May and in August.
June & September — the sweet spot
The best all-round balance. June has the longest daylight of the year here, just over 15 hours, a still-green landscape and the full boat-tour schedule. September edges ahead for swimming: the sea has been warming all summer and averages 24.0°C, against 22.9°C in June. Both sit either side of the July and August peak, so the boats and the coves are busy without being at their fullest.
July & August — spectacular but demanding
The warmest sea — 25.5°C in July and 26.4°C in August — dependable sun and the full range of boat tours and beach services, but also the full weight of the Italian summer holidays. Ferragosto, on 15 August, is the Italian holiday peak: popular tours sell out and coastal roads around Palau can gridlock. If this is your only window, book tours, accommodation and car hire weeks ahead and start beach days before 9am.
May & October — quiet shoulder season
May suits travellers who want warm sun without summer crowds — a vividly green landscape, and boat tours already running, some from April. At 18.5°C the sea is cool for lingering in. October keeps more of the summer’s warmth in the water, at 21.9°C, though that is still a degree below June. The Italian school holidays are over by mid-September, and beach services and boat schedules wind down through October.
November–March — off season
Most boat tour operators pause for the winter, ferry schedules reduce and many seasonal restaurants close. Air temperatures of 12–17°C are too cool for swimming. This window isn't for a boat day, but it does suit a visit to La Maddalena town and Caprera on foot, outside the season when accommodation is dearest.
Getting to Palau and the La Maddalena Archipelago
The logistics are simple, but they run through one gateway town — Palau — so plan the route in advance.
Fly into Olbia
Olbia Costa Smeralda Airport is the nearest, about 40 minutes' drive from Palau, with the most direct connections from across Europe from roughly March to October. Cagliari and Alghero airports are usable but add significant driving time. See our guide to boat trips from Olbia if you're weighing up whether to drive or book a tour that collects you there.
Drive or transfer to Palau
A rental car is the easiest way to reach Palau Marina, where almost all La Maddalena boat tours depart. Book your car early for July and August, when demand is highest and coastal roads can be busy.
Ferry to La Maddalena town (optional)
If you'd rather base yourself on La Maddalena island itself, a car ferry (Delcomar or Maddalena Lines) crosses from Palau in about 15–20 minutes, running every 15–30 minutes in summer. Many boat tours also depart directly from La Maddalena. Full details in our Palau ferry guide.
Book your boat tour ahead
In July and August, reserve several weeks out — the best-reviewed departures sell out. In June, September and October, a few days' notice is usually enough. Most tours offer free cancellation up to 24 hours before departure, so there's little cost to booking early.
Boat Tours for Every Part of the Season
One dependable best-seller that runs all season, plus two options suited to specific conditions.
The Tour We Recommend Whatever Month You're Going
The most-reviewed La Maddalena tour on the platform runs a dependable daily schedule from spring through autumn, with swim stops at Budelli, Santa Maria and Spargi — from $58, with free cancellation.
From Sardinia: La Maddalena Archipelago Full-Day Boat Tour
Why we recommend it: the most-booked option on the platform, with 4.6 stars across 6,138 reviews and a route that holds up in June, July, August and September alike.
Depart Palau or La Maddalena, swim at Budelli's natural pools and Santa Maria, view the Pink Beach from the water, and snorkel at Spargi's Cala Granara, with free time in La Maddalena town.
- Runs daily through the core season
- Swim & snorkel stops at three islands
- Free time in La Maddalena's historic centre
- Multilingual guide commentary on board
- Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead
National Park landing fee (€2.50–€5, cash) paid at check-in. Check live dates and book below.
Palau or La Maddalena: 4-Hour RIB Tour of the Archipelago
A fast, flexible dinghy that adapts well to shifting May and October conditions, reaching sheltered coves when the wind rules out the bigger boats. See our Razzoli & natural pools guide for more on this route.
Maddalena Archipelago: Island-Hopping Sailing Tour with Lunch
A slower-paced sailing day best suited to the long, settled evenings of June and September, with lunch, an aperitif and drinks on board while you swim and snorkel at Spargi and the Budelli natural pools.
Why the Wind Matters More Than the Month
The Strait of Bonifacio, the 11 km channel between Sardinia and Corsica, funnels the Maestrale — the wind the rest of Europe calls the Mistral — and accelerates it. One detail matters if you are reading a forecast: although the Maestrale arrives over Sardinia from the northwest, the east–west channel bends it, so at the strait itself it blows almost due west. At Météo-France’s Cap Pertusato station, on the Corsican side, westerlies account for about half of all hours and true northwesterlies for only about one in twenty. This is the reason a tour that promised Budelli sometimes comes back having seen Spargi instead.
Here is the part that surprises people. Across the tour season, the wind reaches 20 knots on 37% of days — and that figure barely moves from month to month. August is the calmest month of the season and still records it on 32% of days; April, the windiest of the seven, on 45%. Against that, sea temperature swings by eight degrees across the same season. The month is a strong predictor of how warm the water will be and a weak one of whether your boat sails.
Twenty knots is about 37 km/h — a fresh breeze, the strength at which a skipper starts thinking about which side of an island to anchor. It is not a gale, and a day that touches it can still be a fine day in sheltered water. It is simply the point where the route stops being a fixed itinerary.
Those figures come from Météo-France’s Cap Pertusato station, which sits on the Corsican side of the strait and records strong wind on 42% of days across the year. A second station agrees with it: the Aeronautica Militare’s old La Maddalena–Guardiavecchia station, reporting from the island itself until it closed in 1998, gives an annual mean wind speed within 0.05 m/s of Pertusato’s. For scale, that annual mean is about half as much again as Marseille’s.
There is also a difference between how often the Maestrale blows and how hard. It is most frequent in high summer — westerly and northwesterly air covers about two-thirds of July hours — and most violent between December and March, when Pertusato records severe gusts above 100 km/h on about five days a month against well under one in July. The summer Maestrale is a regular afternoon wind, not a gale, which is why it reroutes far more boat tours than it cancels.
What the figures mean in practice: 50 km/h is about 27 knots, a strong breeze, the point at which small-boat operators start rerouting towards sheltered water and cancelling exposed crossings. It is a gust — a brief peak — not a wind that blows all day, and a day that records one can still be perfectly good for a sheltered cove. The monthly rainfall figures elsewhere on this page are totals for a whole month, not a daily rate, and they say nothing about how many days were wet.
Two practical consequences. A small, fast RIB reaches sheltered coves on days when a large group boat has to shorten its route — which is why our Razzoli and natural pools guide recommends one for shoulder-season dates. And whichever month you choose, book the boat for the first days of your stay, so a cancelled sailing can be moved to another.
The Archipelago’s Own Year
Sea temperature and wind describe the conditions. This is what is actually happening out there while you are on the boat.
The sea runs about two months behind the air. It is coldest in February, not January, and warmest in August, not July — and it holds that warmth well into the autumn. That lag is why October still swims at 21.9°C while the air has cooled, and why May, for all its sunshine, is still only 18.5°C. If you are choosing between the two shoulder months, this is the difference between them.
The islands are a seabird colony for the whole of the tour season. Cory’s shearwater — berta maggiore — nests on the major islands, the minor ones and the outlying islets, and the national park puts egg-laying at the end of May, with the birds attending the colony until the young leave around the middle of October. They come in after dark, which is why crews on late sailings hear them before anyone sees them. The archipelago also holds a significant share of the world’s breeding European shags. The park monitors colonies through the season and can close a specific islet while one is active, which is one reason a skipper’s route is not a fixed itinerary.
The Maestrale changes character rather than simply stopping. It is at its most frequent in high summer — westerly and northwesterly air covers about two-thirds of July hours at Cap Pertusato — and at its most violent between December and March, when the same station records severe gusts above 100 km/h on about five days a month against well under one in July. The summer wind is a regular afternoon presence, not a gale, which is why it reroutes far more boat days than it cancels.
The rules themselves have a season. Navigation, mooring and anchoring in the archipelago are currently governed by Ordinanza 33/2026, issued by the Capitaneria di Porto di La Maddalena on 2 April 2026 and applying on a trial basis to the 2026 and 2027 summer seasons. Anything you read about anchoring here more than a season old may describe a rule that no longer applies — check the park’s own norme attuative before you sail your own boat.
How We Know
Where the figures on this page come from, and what they cannot tell you.
Sea temperature is the average of daily maxima for 2021–2025 at a point in the archipelago (41.21°N, 9.41°E), from the Open-Meteo Marine API. Wind is from the ERA5 reanalysis at the same point, using daily maximum gusts over the ten years 2015–2024 — 3,653 days. Air temperature and rainfall are ERA5 1991–2020 figures for the same point, and are used as context only. The operating season is not a weather figure at all: it comes from the seasons the Palau operators publish, which this site tracks across its tour pages.
The wind figures are station observations. They come from Météo-France’s Cap Pertusato station (WMO 07770), which stands on the Corsican side of the Strait of Bonifacio, and are the share of days on which the wind reaches 20 knots, computed from its hourly record for 2010–2024. The method was checked by reproducing Météo-France’s own published gust-day normals for Figari from the same archive, and the resulting annual count of strong-wind days independently reproduces the figure published for this strait in Ocean Dynamics (Gérigny and others, 2015). A second station agrees: the Aeronautica Militare’s La Maddalena–Guardiavecchia (WMO 16506), reporting from the island itself until it closed in 1998, gives an annual mean wind speed within 0.05 m/s of Pertusato’s — two networks, two countries, thirty years apart, agreeing.
What these numbers cannot tell you. Pertusato’s sensor sits 107 m up an exposed clifftop, so its wind speeds are an upper bound on what a boat deck feels rather than a measurement of it. Use them for the shape of the season and for comparing one month with another, not as the wind you will meet in Palau harbour, which is sheltered. Sea temperature is not a station figure at all — no moored buoy series exists for this coast, so those are marine reanalysis values, quoted to one decimal in the table because that is the precision of the model rather than of a thermometer in the water. Italy has published no current normals for La Maddalena since its own station closed in 1998, so no recommendation here turns on a small air-temperature or rainfall difference between two months.
On crowds, we do not have a measurement. There is a monthly visitor series for the province published by ISTAT, and we have not yet obtained it, so this page makes no numeric claim about how busy a month is and no claim at all about monthly prices. What it does say about crowds rests on the Italian school holidays and Ferragosto, which are published calendar facts, not a count of people in the coves. An earlier version of this page carried a figure for September prices against August with nothing behind it; it has been removed rather than re-sourced.
The date check is a forecast, not a promise. Inside 16 days it reads the live forecast for your date; beyond that it shows typical conditions for the month and says so on the card. Neither is a substitute for the operator's own decision on the morning, which is the only one that determines whether your boat leaves.
Best Time to Visit: Frequently Asked Questions
June vs September, whether tours run year-round, and how far ahead to book — answered.
When is the best time to visit La Maddalena?
There is no single best month, because different priorities point at different parts of the season. June and September give the best overall balance — a sea of 23–24°C, every tour format running, and fewer people than high summer. July and August have the warmest water, averaging 26°C. May and October fall outside the Italian school holidays, with the sea at 19°C and 22°C.
Is June or September better for La Maddalena?
September has the warmer sea — 24.0°C against 22.9°C in June — and prices ease once the Italian schools go back. June has slightly fewer windy days, 35% against 33% in September, which is close enough to be a coin toss. Choose September for swimming, June if you want the longest daylight.
How windy is the La Maddalena Archipelago?
Very. Across the tour season the wind reaches 20 knots — about 37 km/h — on 37% of days, measured at Météo-France’s station in the Strait of Bonifacio. It matters because operators reroute away from the exposed outer islands — Budelli, Razzoli and Santa Maria — or cancel outright when it blows hard. No month of the season avoids it: August is the calmest at 32% of days and April the windiest at 45%.
Do La Maddalena boat tours run all year?
No. Organised tours are available from around April to October, with the fullest schedule from June to September. Outside that window only a few private and on-request boats operate, so a winter date is something to enquire about, not to book off a timetable.
How far in advance should I book a La Maddalena boat tour?
For July and August, book several weeks ahead — the most popular departures sell out. For June, September and October, a few days to a week is usually enough. Whenever you go, book the boat for the first days of your stay, so a sailing cancelled by wind can be moved to another.
What is the sea temperature in the La Maddalena Archipelago?
It runs from about 14°C in February to 26.4°C in August. Through the tour season: 15.8°C in April, 18.5°C in May, 22.9°C in June, 25.5°C in July, 26.4°C in August, 24.0°C in September and 21.9°C in October. These are averages of daily highs, so an individual day can sit either side of them.