VacationSelector
The Red Tower and the harbour, Alanya
AlanyaThe Red Tower and the harbour
Wat Chiang Man in the old city, Chiang Mai
Chiang MaiWat Chiang Man in the old city

Photos: Alanya by Atlantic Ambience, Pexels License; Chiang Mai by Gije Cho, Pexels License.

Alanya or Chiang Mai?

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

  • beaches
  • families
  • day trips

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

Choose Chiang Mai for

  • food and drink
  • shopping
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Chiang Mai’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, Chiang Mai 6: Alanya leads by 78 points.
Food & drink. Alanya 43, Chiang Mai 78: Chiang Mai leads by 35 points.
Culture & sights. Alanya 44, Chiang Mai 65: Chiang Mai leads by 21 points.
Nightlife. Alanya 58, Chiang Mai 45: Alanya leads by 13 points.
Nature & outdoors. Alanya 68, Chiang Mai 73: Chiang Mai leads by 5 points.
Day trips. Alanya 62, Chiang Mai 48: Alanya leads by 14 points.
Good for families. Alanya 70, Chiang Mai 55: Alanya leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Alanya 50, Chiang Mai 38: Alanya leads by 12 points.
Shopping & style. Alanya 34, Chiang Mai 62: Chiang Mai leads by 28 points.
Affordability. Alanya 65, Chiang Mai 90: Chiang Mai leads by 25 points.
Live music & performing arts. Alanya 15, Chiang Mai 30: Chiang Mai leads by 15 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Alanya 56, Chiang Mai 82: Chiang Mai leads by 26 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Alanya and Chiang Mai.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Alanya
54match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Chiang Mai
56match

Wins on food and drink 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.

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

Chiang Mai in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
No seasea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
AlanyaChiang Mai

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. Chiang Mai: 1991-2020 normals, Chiang Mai (0.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAlanyaChiang Mai
Official languageTurkishThai
CurrencyTurkish Lira (TRY)Baht (THB)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+3UTC+7
Emergency number112Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation10 m310 m
Main airportGazipaşa-Alanya Airport (GZP)38 km from centre22 non-stop destinationsChiang Mai International Airport (CNX)3 km from centre28 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days-

By the numbers

MeasureAlanyaChiang Mai
City population364,1801,198,000
People per km²2282,958
Museums within 10 km26
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C7 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Alanya or Chiang Mai 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.