VacationSelector
The Adelaide skyline and the footbridge over the River Torrens, Adelaide
AdelaideThe Adelaide skyline and the footbridge over the River Torrens
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art

Photos: Adelaide by Ardash Muradian, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Adelaide 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 Adelaide for

  • beaches
  • families
  • nightlife

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

Choose Santa Fe for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • 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. Adelaide 68, Santa Fe 5: Adelaide leads by 63 points.
Food & drink. Adelaide 72, Santa Fe 62: Adelaide leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Adelaide 48, Santa Fe 66: Santa Fe leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. Adelaide 42, Santa Fe 22: Adelaide leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Adelaide 66, Santa Fe 80: Santa Fe leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Adelaide 60, Santa Fe 70: Santa Fe leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Adelaide 70, Santa Fe 45: Adelaide leads by 25 points.
Getting around. Adelaide 57, Santa Fe 40: Adelaide leads by 17 points.
Shopping & style. Adelaide 44, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 18 points.
Affordability. Adelaide 40, Santa Fe 30: Adelaide leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. Adelaide 63, Santa Fe 55: Adelaide leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Adelaide 42, Santa Fe 55: Santa Fe leads by 13 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Adelaide and Santa Fe.

Your match

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

Adelaide
Best match
56match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Santa Fe
49match

Wins on culture and sights and shopping with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Adelaide in July

16 °Cdaytime high
8 °Cnight-time low
72 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
14 °Csea
10 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

020406080JFMAMJJASOND
AdelaideSanta 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. Adelaide: 1991-2020 normals, Adelaide (West Terrace / ngayirdapira) (3.1 km from centre). Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAdelaideSanta Fe
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+9:30, UTC+10:30 in summerUTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number000911
Elevation1 m2,134 m
Main airportAdelaide International Airport (ADL)6 km from centre35 non-stop destinationsSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureAdelaideSanta Fe
City population1,387,29087,505
People per km²1,071645
Museums within 10 km1310
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C3 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Adelaide 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.