VacationSelector
The Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires
Buenos AiresThe Teatro Colón
A classic car in front of the Capitolio, Havana
HavanaA classic car in front of the Capitolio

Photos: Buenos Aires by Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Havana by AXP Photography, Pexels License.

Buenos Aires or Havana?

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 Buenos Aires for

  • food and drink
  • nightlife
  • shopping

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

Choose Havana for

  • beaches
  • culture and sights
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Havana’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. Buenos Aires 7, Havana 64: Havana leads by 57 points.
Food & drink. Buenos Aires 75, Havana 40: Buenos Aires leads by 35 points.
Culture & sights. Buenos Aires 71, Havana 77: Havana leads by 6 points.
Nightlife. Buenos Aires 95, Havana 60: Buenos Aires leads by 35 points.
Nature & outdoors. Buenos Aires 38, Havana 34: Buenos Aires leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Buenos Aires 60, Havana 38: Buenos Aires leads by 22 points.
Good for families. Buenos Aires 52, Havana 34: Buenos Aires leads by 18 points.
Getting around. Buenos Aires 62, Havana 38: Buenos Aires leads by 24 points.
Shopping & style. Buenos Aires 60, Havana 30: Buenos Aires leads by 30 points.
Affordability. Buenos Aires 55, Havana 58: Havana leads by 3 points.
Live music & performing arts. Buenos Aires 75, Havana 74: Buenos Aires leads by 1 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Buenos Aires 28, Havana 22: Buenos Aires leads by 6 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Buenos Aires and Havana.

Your match

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

Buenos Aires
Best match
57match

Wins on food and drink and nightlife with your weighting.

Havana
47match

Wins on beaches and culture and sights with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Buenos Aires in July

15 °Cdaytime high
8 °Cnight-time low
50 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
13 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Havana in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
118 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
Buenos AiresHavana

Where the figures come from

Havana 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. Buenos Aires: 1991-2020 normals, Aeroparque Bs. As. Aerodrome (4.9 km from centre). Havana: 1991-2020 normals, Casa Blanca, La Habana (3.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBuenos AiresHavana
Official languageSpanishSpanish
CurrencyArgentine Peso (ARS)Cuban Peso (CUP)
SocketsCI220 V, 50 HzAB110 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-3UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number117 or 911Police 106, ambulance 104, fire 105
Elevation25 m59 m
Main airportEzeiza International Airport - Ministro Pistarini (EZE)28 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsJosé Martí International Airport (HAV)17 km from centre21 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureBuenos AiresHavana
City population3,121,7072,492,618
People per km²15,3553,423
Museums within 10 km7612
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Buenos Aires or Havana 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). 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. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.