Florida has two seasons, not four, and the game’s release lands in the good one. Dry season, roughly November to April, is the comfortable, expensive one; wet season, May to October, is hot, stormy and cheap. Pick by what you want to see and what you want to pay, then read the hurricane section before you book anything non-refundable.
The dry season: November to April
This is the Florida in the trailers. Highs in Miami sit in the 70s and low 80s, the humidity drops, and a cold front every couple of weeks brings a morning cool enough for a jacket. The water in the Everglades falls and the wildlife gathers along the canals, which is why Shark Valley is lined with alligators in February and nearly empty of them in August. The cane harvest in Ambrosia runs through the same months.
The cost is the crowd. Christmas to New Year is the most expensive week of the year, February and March are close behind, and rooms in Miami Beach and the Keys can cost roughly double what they cost in September.
The wet season: May to October
Summer is hot, wet and cheap. Highs are in the low 90s from June through September, and most afternoons a thunderstorm builds over the interior, drops an inch of rain in an hour and clears, so do your outdoor hours before noon. Mosquitoes in the Everglades are serious from June to September, and some summers sargassum seaweed piles up on the Atlantic beaches.
The upside is real. Hotel prices fall by a third to a half, the beaches are quiet outside July, the water is bath-warm, and the north Florida springs, at 72 degrees year-round, are the best swimming in the state exactly when everywhere else is too hot. May and October are the sweet spots.
Hurricane season: June 1 to November 30
The season runs June 1 to November 30, but the risk is not evenly spread. Early storms are usually weak; the real window is August to October, with a statistical peak around September 10. Most years, most of Florida sees nothing worse than a rainy week, and some years a trip is cancelled or cut short.
In practice: buy travel insurance when you book, not when a storm appears, because a policy bought after the National Hurricane Center names a storm will not cover that storm. Use refundable rates between August and October. Watch the forecast a week out; the National Hurricane Center publishes a seven-day outlook, enough time to move a trip. Once a storm is forecast, airlines usually issue change waivers and hotels generally refund. The Leonida Keys are the special case: one road serves the whole chain, so Monroe County orders visitors out first, often a day or two before residents. November storms are rare but not unheard of; keep the same habits if you are travelling for the release.
Month by month
- January: coolest month, sometimes into the 50s in Miami, near freezing in the Panhandle. Peak prices. Art Deco Weekend mid-month.
- February: driest month, perfect beach weather, the priciest stretch of the year in the Keys.
- March: warm and dry. Spring break in Miami Beach and Panama City Beach; Ultra Music Festival downtown late in the month.
- April: still dry, crowds thin after Easter, the last comfortable Everglades month. Best value of the dry season.
- May: humidity and afternoon rain arrive, prices drop; the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix spikes hotel rates for one weekend.
- June: hurricane season opens, daily storms begin, school holidays fill the Panhandle beaches.
- July: hottest month. Families pack Panama City Beach; the two-day lobster mini-season books out the Keys.
- August: hottest and wettest, start of the hurricane peak, cheapest rooms of the year.
- September: peak of hurricane season, quietest month in the state. Cheap for a reason; insure everything.
- October: storms taper, water still warm, cane burning starts in Ambrosia, Fantasy Fest at month’s end.
- November: dry season returns around mid-month. Comfortable, not yet expensive, and the game releases on the 19th.
- December: Art Basel fills Miami Beach in the first week; December 20 to January 2 are the most expensive nights of the year.
Event dates move from year to year; check before you book around one.
Events that change the mood
Art Deco Weekend, Miami Beach, January. A free street festival on Ocean Drive, with walking tours, vintage cars and music, celebrating the buildings that make Ocean Beach look the way it does. Rooms cost more and the strip is packed.
Spring break, March. Miami Beach has spent the last few Marches actively discouraging it, with parking restrictions, extra police, checkpoints and, in some years, curfews. Do not plan a South Beach trip in March expecting a party, and expect the rules to change year to year. Panama City Beach is the opposite: the spring break town of the Southeast, loud and crowded all month. Drinking on the sand has been banned in March since the mid-2010s, but Front Beach Road still fills.
Fantasy Fest, Key West, late October. Ten days of costume parties and parades ending on the last weekend of October, centered on Duval Street. Rooms book out months ahead at winter prices. Plan a Keys trip around it or pick another week.
The winter holidays. Christmas to New Year is peak in Miami and the Keys (the Panhandle is quiet in winter). Book by September and expect minimum-stay rules.
Best window by region
- Vice City: November to April, avoiding the holiday fortnight and spring break. May and October are the value months.
- Leonida Keys: December to April is peak and expensive. Late April through May, and October to early December skipping Fantasy Fest, give you warm water and lower rates.
- Grassrivers: December to April, full stop. Low water concentrates the wildlife and the mosquitoes are gone. Summer works only in the early morning.
- Port Gellhorn: April to May and September to October, when the Gulf is warm and the crowds are not there. March is spring break, July belongs to families, and the winter water is too cold for most people. Watch the beach flags: double red means the water is closed.
- Ambrosia: October to April, the harvest and burning season. A December afternoon with the sun low and a burn going somewhere is the trailer; in summer nothing is happening in the fields.
- Mount Kalaga: the springs are for summer weekdays, May to September, when 72-degree water is a relief. The forest and hunt camps are for November to February, when manatees crowd into the warm springs; it is also hunting season, so wear bright colors on the trails.
Release week: November 19, 2026
The game releases on Thursday, November 19, 2026, on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. No unlock time has been announced; the release page covers what that means for your timezone. As a travel date it is close to ideal: the dry season has just begun, the water is still warm, hurricane season is nearly over and the Christmas prices have not started.
Be realistic, though. Plenty of people will have the same idea, the following week is Thanksgiving, and Miami is already filling with winter visitors. Rooms will cost more than a month earlier and the good ones will go early. If you want to be in the real Vice City the day the game drops, book now and book refundable; if you just want the best trip, early December or late January will be cheaper and just as good. If Rockstar announces anything for launch week, it will be on the Rockstar Newswire; we will not guess ahead of it.
Updated September 21, 2026. All guides