VacationSelector
The church of La Compania under a blue sky, Arequipa
ArequipaThe church of La Compania under a blue sky
The Plaza de los Naranjos and its fountain in the old town, Marbella
MarbellaThe Plaza de los Naranjos and its fountain in the old town

Photos: Arequipa by DocSlyper, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Marbella by Décio Franchini, Pexels License.

Arequipa or Marbella?

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
  • culture and sights
  • getting around

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

Choose Marbella for

  • beaches
  • day trips
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Marbella’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, Marbella 76: Marbella leads by 68 points.
Food & drink. Arequipa 66, Marbella 60: Arequipa leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Arequipa 64, Marbella 32: Arequipa leads by 32 points.
Nightlife. Arequipa 36, Marbella 64: Marbella leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Arequipa 74, Marbella 70: Arequipa leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Arequipa 30, Marbella 77: Marbella leads by 47 points.
Good for families. Arequipa 35, Marbella 70: Marbella leads by 35 points.
Getting around. Arequipa 54, Marbella 38: Arequipa leads by 16 points.
Shopping & style. Arequipa 44, Marbella 58: Marbella leads by 14 points.
Affordability. Arequipa 82, Marbella 30: Arequipa leads by 52 points.
Live music & performing arts. Arequipa 27, Marbella 30: Marbella leads by 3 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Arequipa 34, Marbella 52: Marbella leads by 18 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Arequipa
46match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Marbella
Best match
55match

Wins on beaches and day trips 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
No seasea
11 hdaylight a day

Marbella in July

31 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
21 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
ArequipaMarbella

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.

Marbella's temperatures are measured 40 km from the centre, at Malaga / Aeropuerto.

Marbella 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. Arequipa: 1991-2020 normals, Arequipa (9.2 km from centre). Marbella: 1991-2020 normals, Malaga / Aeropuerto (39.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureArequipaMarbella
Official languageSpanish, Aymara, QuechuaSpanish
CurrencySol (PEN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number111 or 911112
Elevation2,335 m22 m
Main airportRodríguez Ballón International Airport (AQP)7 km from centre2 non-stop destinationsMálaga-Costa del Sol Airport (AGP)39 km from centre166 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year17 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureArequipaMarbella
City population1,008,290159,786
People per km²1,5511,398
Museums within 10 km36
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C-3 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Arequipa or Marbella 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.