VacationSelector
The church of La Compania under a blue sky, Arequipa
ArequipaThe church of La Compania under a blue sky
Palms on a white beach at Cap Cana, Punta Cana
Punta CanaPalms on a white beach at Cap Cana

Photos: Arequipa by DocSlyper, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Punta Cana by Mary Mark Ockerbloom, CC0.

Arequipa or Punta Cana?

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
  • getting around
  • prices

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

Choose Punta Cana for

  • beaches
  • families
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Punta Cana’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, Punta Cana 94: Punta Cana leads by 86 points.
Food & drink. Arequipa 66, Punta Cana 30: Arequipa leads by 36 points.
Culture & sights. Arequipa 64, Punta Cana 8: Arequipa leads by 56 points.
Nightlife. Arequipa 36, Punta Cana 40: Punta Cana leads by 4 points.
Nature & outdoors. Arequipa 74, Punta Cana 52: Arequipa leads by 22 points.
Day trips. Arequipa 30, Punta Cana 35: Punta Cana leads by 5 points.
Good for families. Arequipa 35, Punta Cana 68: Punta Cana leads by 33 points.
Getting around. Arequipa 54, Punta Cana 15: Arequipa leads by 39 points.
Shopping & style. Arequipa 44, Punta Cana 30: Arequipa leads by 14 points.
Affordability. Arequipa 82, Punta Cana 44: Arequipa leads by 38 points.
Live music & performing arts. Arequipa 27, Punta Cana 15: Arequipa leads by 12 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Arequipa 34, Punta Cana 52: Punta Cana leads by 18 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Arequipa
Best match
46match

Wins on culture and sights and getting around with your weighting.

Punta Cana
40match

Wins on beaches and families 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 seasea
11 hdaylight a day

Punta Cana in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
96 mmrain in the month
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
ArequipaPunta Cana

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.

Punta Cana 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). Punta Cana: 1993-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Punta Cana (0.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureArequipaPunta Cana
Official languageSpanish, Aymara, QuechuaSpanish
CurrencySol (PEN)Dominican Peso (DOP)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzAB110 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-4
Emergency number111 or 911911
Elevation2,335 m28 m
Main airportRodríguez Ballón International Airport (AQP)7 km from centre2 non-stop destinationsPunta Cana International Airport (PUJ)1 km from centre93 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year17 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureArequipaPunta Cana
City population1,008,290138,919
People per km²1,551292
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 Punta Cana 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. 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.