october is a very good time to go

IMHO Backpackers do not hang out in Candolim, but Arambol, Vagator, Chapora and Anjuna are where you will find them in the North. Or Palolem, Patnem and Benaulim in the South.
x lassi

Anjuna vs Arambol....I found the constant insistence on selling hard drugs to every passer-by in Anjuna a bit heavy-going/oppressive/seedy, and thought that Arambol is much easier-going and laid-back - in fact quite tranquil. Lots of long-stayers there in cheap (and relatively primitive) places to stay and to eat. Don't know how quiet you may find it around October.

are these places far from candolim????

This might help you get your bearings..........

http://www.johnthemap.co.uk/pages/goa/goamap.html a lot of the places are interactive if you put the cursor on them.

From experience last October, few shacks were up, many other businesses just opening, and market not open till late October at Anjuna. No night market till November.

Quite hot and humid, many locals will tell you its the second hottest month after May.......it certainly felt like it. Few backpackers around that early. The season has definitely shifted in recent years, with November being the slow start-up to the season.

We left on 31st Oct (having been here since end July) for three weeks to go for visas. The difference from leaving to returning was quite noticeable.

Any thoughts on next season are of course, speculative. Allowing for the fall in tourist numbers from the the UK for the past two years (halved) and the problems Russia is now having with its economy, its hard to know what will happen.

I've been going to Candolim for years, no backpackers there, follow Lassigirls advice.