VacationSelector
The Red Tower and the harbour, Alanya
AlanyaThe Red Tower and the harbour
Yellow colonial houses in the walled city, Cartagena
CartagenaYellow colonial houses in the walled city

Photos: Alanya by Atlantic Ambience, Pexels License; Cartagena by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Alanya or Cartagena?

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 Alanya for

  • families
  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Cartagena for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Cartagena’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. Alanya 84, Cartagena 70: Alanya leads by 14 points.
Food & drink. Alanya 43, Cartagena 62: Cartagena leads by 19 points.
Culture & sights. Alanya 44, Cartagena 68: Cartagena leads by 24 points.
Nightlife. Alanya 58, Cartagena 70: Cartagena leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. Alanya 68, Cartagena 46: Alanya leads by 22 points.
Day trips. Alanya 62, Cartagena 33: Alanya leads by 29 points.
Good for families. Alanya 70, Cartagena 40: Alanya leads by 30 points.
Getting around. Alanya 50, Cartagena 54: Cartagena leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Alanya 34, Cartagena 48: Cartagena leads by 14 points.
Affordability. Alanya 65, Cartagena 60: Alanya leads by 5 points.
Live music & performing arts. Alanya 15, Cartagena 40: Cartagena leads by 25 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Alanya 56, Cartagena 40: Alanya leads by 16 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Alanya and Cartagena.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Alanya
54match

Wins on families and day trips with your weighting.

Cartagena
53match

Wins on live music and the arts 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.

Alanya in July

32 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
3 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Cartagena in July

31 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
124 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
AlanyaCartagena

Where the figures come from

Alanya has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Alanya: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Cartagena: 1991-2020 normals, Cartagena / Rafael Nunez (3.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAlanyaCartagena
Official languageTurkishSpanish
CurrencyTurkish Lira (TRY)Colombian Peso (COP)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzAB110 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+3UTC-5
Emergency number112123
Elevation10 m2 m
Main airportGazipaşa-Alanya Airport (GZP)38 km from centre22 non-stop destinationsRafael Nuñez International Airport (CTG)2 km from centre26 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days19 days

By the numbers

MeasureAlanyaCartagena
City population364,180914,552
People per km²2281,599
Museums within 10 km22
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C7 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Alanya or Cartagena somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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.