VacationSelector
The beach with the bay and the skyline behind, Acapulco
AcapulcoThe beach with the bay and the skyline behind
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art

Photos: Acapulco by Felicia Navarrete, Pexels License; Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Acapulco or Santa Fe?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Acapulco for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Acapulco’s own page.

Choose Santa Fe for

  • day trips
  • culture and sights
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Fe’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Acapulco 80, Santa Fe 5: Acapulco leads by 75 points.
Food & drink. Acapulco 55, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 7 points.
Culture & sights. Acapulco 28, Santa Fe 66: Santa Fe leads by 38 points.
Nightlife. Acapulco 64, Santa Fe 22: Acapulco leads by 42 points.
Nature & outdoors. Acapulco 50, Santa Fe 80: Santa Fe leads by 30 points.
Day trips. Acapulco 15, Santa Fe 70: Santa Fe leads by 55 points.
Good for families. Acapulco and Santa Fe are level on 45.
Getting around. Acapulco 30, Santa Fe 40: Santa Fe leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Acapulco 32, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 30 points.
Affordability. Acapulco 74, Santa Fe 30: Acapulco leads by 44 points.
Live music & performing arts. Acapulco 26, Santa Fe 55: Santa Fe leads by 29 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Acapulco 32, Santa Fe 55: Santa Fe leads by 23 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Acapulco and Santa Fe.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Acapulco
44match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Santa Fe
Best match
49match

Wins on day trips and culture and sights with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Acapulco in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
226 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Santa Fe in July

31 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
60 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
AcapulcoSanta Fe

Where the figures come from

Santa Fe's station stands 199 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Santa Fe has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Acapulco: 1991-2020 normals, Acapulco, Gro. (5.9 km from centre). Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAcapulcoSanta Fe
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya-
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation18 m2,134 m
Main airportGeneral Juan N. Álvarez International Airport (ACA)18 km from centre10 non-stop destinationsSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureAcapulcoSanta Fe
City population658,60987,505
People per km²350645
Museums within 10 km310
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Acapulco or Santa Fe somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.