VacationSelector
The beach with its parasols and the boardwalk, Bethany Beach
Bethany BeachThe beach with its parasols and the boardwalk
The fountain on Plaza Mayor, Lima
LimaThe fountain on Plaza Mayor

Photos: Bethany Beach by Doug Olson, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Lima by James C., CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Bethany Beach or Lima?

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 Bethany Beach for

  • beaches
  • families
  • day trips

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

Choose Lima for

  • culture and sights
  • food and drink
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Lima’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. Bethany Beach 72, Lima 42: Bethany Beach leads by 30 points.
Food & drink. Bethany Beach 35, Lima 88: Lima leads by 53 points.
Culture & sights. Bethany Beach 10, Lima 66: Lima leads by 56 points.
Nightlife. Bethany Beach 12, Lima 62: Lima leads by 50 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bethany Beach 48, Lima 45: Bethany Beach leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Bethany Beach 45, Lima 34: Bethany Beach leads by 11 points.
Good for families. Bethany Beach 66, Lima 42: Bethany Beach leads by 24 points.
Getting around. Bethany Beach 33, Lima 35: Lima leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Bethany Beach 28, Lima 52: Lima leads by 24 points.
Affordability. Bethany Beach 30, Lima 70: Lima leads by 40 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bethany Beach 14, Lima 53: Lima leads by 39 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bethany Beach 33, Lima 25: Bethany Beach leads by 8 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bethany Beach and Lima.

Your match

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

Bethany Beach
36match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Lima
Best match
51match

Wins on culture and sights and food and drink with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Bethany Beach in July

31 °Cdaytime high
20 °Cnight-time low
95 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
23 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Lima in July

19 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
1 hsunshine a day
18 °Csea
12 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
Bethany BeachLima

Where the figures come from

Bethany Beach's temperatures are measured 45 km from the centre, at Salisbury / Quail Ridge.

Bethany Beach 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. Bethany Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Salisbury / Quail Ridge (44.9 km from centre). Lima: 1991-2020 normals, Lima-Callao / Aerop. Internacional Jorgechavez (10.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBethany BeachLima
Official language-Spanish, Aymara, Quechua
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Sol (PEN)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzABC220 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number911111 or 911
Elevation3 m154 m
Main airportSalisbury Ocean City Wicomico Regional Airport (SBY)45 km from centre4 non-stop destinationsJorge Chávez International Airport (LIM)9 km from centre61 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureBethany BeachLima
City population9549,943,800
People per km²3183,721
Museums within 10 km047
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
Swim season, months above 21 °C3 months2 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bethany Beach or Lima 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). 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. 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.