VacationSelector
The CEC Palace on Calea Victoriei, Bucharest
BucharestThe CEC Palace on Calea Victoriei
The Sanctuary of Truth by the sea, Pattaya
PattayaThe Sanctuary of Truth by the sea

Photos: Bucharest by Jorge Láscar, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Pattaya by Matrix, Pexels License.

Bucharest 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 Bucharest for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • getting around

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

Choose Pattaya for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • 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. Bucharest 8, Pattaya 66: Pattaya leads by 58 points.
Food & drink. Bucharest 55, Pattaya 58: Pattaya leads by 3 points.
Culture & sights. Bucharest 58, Pattaya 30: Bucharest leads by 28 points.
Nightlife. Bucharest 70, Pattaya 76: Pattaya leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bucharest 45, Pattaya 40: Bucharest leads by 5 points.
Day trips. Bucharest and Pattaya are level on 52.
Good for families. Bucharest 52, Pattaya 55: Pattaya leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Bucharest 52, Pattaya 36: Bucharest leads by 16 points.
Shopping & style. Bucharest 45, Pattaya 42: Bucharest leads by 3 points.
Affordability. Bucharest 70, Pattaya 84: Pattaya leads by 14 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bucharest 60, Pattaya 30: Bucharest leads by 30 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bucharest 47, Pattaya 58: Pattaya leads by 11 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bucharest and Pattaya.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Bucharest
51match

Wins on live music and the arts and culture and sights with your weighting.

Pattaya
52match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Bucharest in July

30 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
68 mmrain in the month
10 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 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
BucharestPattaya

Where the figures come from

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. Bucharest: 1991-2020 normals, Bucuresti / Imh (10 km from centre). Pattaya: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1961-1990, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Sattahip (31.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBucharestPattaya
Official languageRomanianThai
CurrencyRomanian Leu (RON)Baht (THB)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC+7
Emergency number112Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation70 m35 m
Main airportBucharest Henri Coandă International Airport (OTP)18 km from centre121 non-stop destinationsSuvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)83 km from centre150 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year17 days-

By the numbers

MeasureBucharestPattaya
City population1,716,961119,532
People per km²7,597-
Museums within 10 km410
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Bucharest 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). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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. 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. 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.