VacationSelector
The church of La Compania under a blue sky, Arequipa
ArequipaThe church of La Compania under a blue sky
The Sanctuary of Truth by the sea, Pattaya
PattayaThe Sanctuary of Truth by the sea

Photos: Arequipa by DocSlyper, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Pattaya by Matrix, Pexels License.

Arequipa 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 Arequipa for

  • culture and sights
  • nature and the outdoors
  • getting around

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

Choose Pattaya for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • wellness

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. Arequipa 8, Pattaya 66: Pattaya leads by 58 points.
Food & drink. Arequipa 66, Pattaya 58: Arequipa leads by 8 points.
Culture & sights. Arequipa 64, Pattaya 30: Arequipa leads by 34 points.
Nightlife. Arequipa 36, Pattaya 76: Pattaya leads by 40 points.
Nature & outdoors. Arequipa 74, Pattaya 40: Arequipa leads by 34 points.
Day trips. Arequipa 30, Pattaya 52: Pattaya leads by 22 points.
Good for families. Arequipa 35, Pattaya 55: Pattaya leads by 20 points.
Getting around. Arequipa 54, Pattaya 36: Arequipa leads by 18 points.
Shopping & style. Arequipa 44, Pattaya 42: Arequipa leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Arequipa 82, Pattaya 84: Pattaya leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Arequipa 27, Pattaya 30: Pattaya leads by 3 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Arequipa 34, Pattaya 58: Pattaya leads by 24 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Arequipa and Pattaya.

Your match

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

Arequipa
46match

Wins on culture and sights and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Pattaya
Best match
52match

Wins on beaches 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.

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

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
ArequipaPattaya

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.

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. Arequipa: 1991-2020 normals, Arequipa (9.2 km from centre). Pattaya: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1961-1990, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Sattahip (31.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureArequipaPattaya
Official languageSpanish, Aymara, QuechuaThai
CurrencySol (PEN)Baht (THB)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+7
Emergency number111 or 911Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation2,335 m35 m
Main airportRodríguez Ballón International Airport (AQP)7 km from centre2 non-stop destinationsSuvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)83 km from centre150 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year17 days-

By the numbers

MeasureArequipaPattaya
City population1,008,290119,532
People per km²1,551-
Museums within 10 km30
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Arequipa or Pattaya 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.