VacationSelector
The old town hall, Boca Raton
Boca RatonThe old town hall
The cathedral of Santa Marta, Santa Marta
Santa MartaThe cathedral of Santa Marta

Photos: Boca Raton by Spudgun67, CC0; Santa Marta by Oliver H, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Boca Raton or Santa Marta?

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 Boca Raton for

  • shopping
  • day trips
  • families

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

Choose Santa Marta for

  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Marta’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. Boca Raton 82, Santa Marta 70: Boca Raton leads by 12 points.
Food & drink. Boca Raton and Santa Marta are level on 44.
Culture & sights. Boca Raton 28, Santa Marta 34: Santa Marta leads by 6 points.
Nightlife. Boca Raton 32, Santa Marta 50: Santa Marta leads by 18 points.
Nature & outdoors. Boca Raton 50, Santa Marta 84: Santa Marta leads by 34 points.
Day trips. Boca Raton 60, Santa Marta 38: Boca Raton leads by 22 points.
Good for families. Boca Raton 62, Santa Marta 40: Boca Raton leads by 22 points.
Getting around. Boca Raton 18, Santa Marta 38: Santa Marta leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Boca Raton 54, Santa Marta 27: Boca Raton leads by 27 points.
Affordability. Boca Raton 22, Santa Marta 80: Santa Marta leads by 58 points.
Live music & performing arts. Boca Raton 33, Santa Marta 17: Boca Raton leads by 16 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Boca Raton 42, Santa Marta 30: Boca Raton leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Boca Raton and Santa Marta.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Boca Raton
44match

Wins on shopping and day trips with your weighting.

Santa Marta
46match

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

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Boca Raton in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
191 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Santa Marta in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
59 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Boca RatonSanta Marta

Where the figures come from

Boca Raton 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. Boca Raton: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Pompano Beach / Kendall Green (13.6 km from centre). Santa Marta: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Marta / Simon Bolivar (11.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBoca RatonSanta Marta
Official language-Spanish
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Colombian Peso (COP)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB110 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number911123
Elevation4 m8 m
Main airportFort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL)33 km from centre138 non-stop destinationsSimón Bolívar International Airport (SMR)13 km from centre6 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days19 days

By the numbers

MeasureBoca RatonSanta Marta
City population97,422505,915
People per km²1,2031,723
Museums within 10 km53
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Boca Raton or Santa Marta 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.