VacationSelector
The church of La Compania under a blue sky, Arequipa
ArequipaThe church of La Compania under a blue sky
Florence and the Arno, Florence
FlorenceFlorence and the Arno

Photos: Arequipa by DocSlyper, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Florence by Wolfgang Weiser, Pexels License.

Arequipa or Florence?

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 Arequipa for

  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Florence for

  • day trips
  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Florence’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. Arequipa 8, Florence 14: Florence leads by 6 points.
Food & drink. Arequipa 66, Florence 74: Florence leads by 8 points.
Culture & sights. Arequipa 64, Florence 94: Florence leads by 30 points.
Nightlife. Arequipa 36, Florence 42: Florence leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Arequipa 74, Florence 58: Arequipa leads by 16 points.
Day trips. Arequipa 30, Florence 98: Florence leads by 68 points.
Good for families. Arequipa 35, Florence 45: Florence leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Arequipa 54, Florence 78: Florence leads by 24 points.
Shopping & style. Arequipa 44, Florence 72: Florence leads by 28 points.
Affordability. Arequipa 82, Florence 35: Arequipa leads by 47 points.
Live music & performing arts. Arequipa 27, Florence 58: Florence leads by 31 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Arequipa 34, Florence 42: Florence leads by 8 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Arequipa and Florence.

Your match

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

Arequipa
46match

Wins on prices and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Florence
Best match
59match

Wins on day trips and live music and the arts with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Arequipa in July

21 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
11 hdaylight a day

Florence in July

32 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
37 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
ArequipaFlorence

Where the figures come from

Arequipa's station stands 203 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

Florence 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.

Florence's sunshine is measured 71 km from the centre, at Pisa / S. Giusto.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Arequipa: 1991-2020 normals, Arequipa (9.2 km from centre). Florence: 1995-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Firenze / Peretola (5.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureArequipaFlorence
Official languageSpanish, Aymara, QuechuaItalian
CurrencySol (PEN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number111 or 911112
Elevation2,335 m50 m
Main airportRodríguez Ballón International Airport (AQP)7 km from centre2 non-stop destinationsFlorence Airport, Peretola (FLR)6 km from centre46 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year17 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureArequipaFlorence
City population1,008,290360,930
People per km²1,5513,528
Museums within 10 km3141
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km14

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Arequipa or Florence 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. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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.