VacationSelector
The Red Tower and the harbour, Alanya
AlanyaThe Red Tower and the harbour
The Sanctuary of Truth by the sea, Pattaya
PattayaThe Sanctuary of Truth by the sea

Photos: Alanya by Atlantic Ambience, Pexels License; Pattaya by Matrix, Pexels License.

Alanya or Pattaya?

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

  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches
  • families

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

Choose Pattaya for

  • prices
  • nightlife
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Pattaya’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, Pattaya 66: Alanya leads by 18 points.
Food & drink. Alanya 43, Pattaya 58: Pattaya leads by 15 points.
Culture & sights. Alanya 44, Pattaya 30: Alanya leads by 14 points.
Nightlife. Alanya 58, Pattaya 76: Pattaya leads by 18 points.
Nature & outdoors. Alanya 68, Pattaya 40: Alanya leads by 28 points.
Day trips. Alanya 62, Pattaya 52: Alanya leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Alanya 70, Pattaya 55: Alanya leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Alanya 50, Pattaya 36: Alanya leads by 14 points.
Shopping & style. Alanya 34, Pattaya 42: Pattaya leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Alanya 65, Pattaya 84: Pattaya leads by 19 points.
Live music & performing arts. Alanya 15, Pattaya 30: Pattaya leads by 15 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Alanya 56, Pattaya 58: Pattaya leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Alanya and Pattaya.

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 nature and the outdoors and beaches with your weighting.

Pattaya
52match

Wins on prices and nightlife 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

Pattaya in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
102 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
AlanyaPattaya

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.

Pattaya's temperatures are measured 31 km from the centre, at Sattahip.

Pattaya 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.

Pattaya's sunshine is measured 86 km from the centre, at Bangna Agromet / Ban Khlong Samrong.

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. Pattaya: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1961-1990, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Sattahip (31.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAlanyaPattaya
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 m35 m
Main airportGazipaşa-Alanya Airport (GZP)38 km from centre22 non-stop destinationsSuvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)83 km from centre150 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days-

By the numbers

MeasureAlanyaPattaya
City population364,180119,532
People per km²228-
Museums within 10 km20
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Pattaya 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.