VacationSelector
The Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires
Buenos AiresThe Teatro Colón
Painted wooden houses under palms in Key West, Key West
Key WestPainted wooden houses under palms in Key West

Photos: Buenos Aires by Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Key West by Dominik Gryzbon, Pexels License.

Buenos Aires or Key West?

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

  • prices
  • live music and the arts
  • nightlife

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

Choose Key West for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Key West’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, Key West 60: Key West leads by 53 points.
Food & drink. Buenos Aires 75, Key West 45: Buenos Aires leads by 30 points.
Culture & sights. Buenos Aires 71, Key West 40: Buenos Aires leads by 31 points.
Nightlife. Buenos Aires 95, Key West 62: Buenos Aires leads by 33 points.
Nature & outdoors. Buenos Aires 38, Key West 62: Key West leads by 24 points.
Day trips. Buenos Aires 60, Key West 28: Buenos Aires leads by 32 points.
Good for families. Buenos Aires 52, Key West 40: Buenos Aires leads by 12 points.
Getting around. Buenos Aires and Key West are level on 62.
Shopping & style. Buenos Aires 60, Key West 30: Buenos Aires leads by 30 points.
Affordability. Buenos Aires 55, Key West 15: Buenos Aires leads by 40 points.
Live music & performing arts. Buenos Aires 75, Key West 38: Buenos Aires leads by 37 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Buenos Aires 28, Key West 40: Key West leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Buenos Aires and Key West.

Your match

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

Buenos Aires
Best match
57match

Wins on prices and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Key West
44match

Wins on beaches 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.

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

Key West in July

32 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
84 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
Buenos AiresKey West

Where the figures come from

Key West's temperatures are measured 69 km from the centre, at Key West Airport.

Key West 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). Key West: 1991-2020 normals, Key West Airport (69.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBuenos AiresKey West
Official languageSpanish-
CurrencyArgentine Peso (ARS)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCI220 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-3UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number117 or 911911
Elevation25 m4 m
Main airportEzeiza International Airport - Ministro Pistarini (EZE)28 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsKey West International Airport (EYW)2 km from centre24 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureBuenos AiresKey West
City population3,121,70726,444
People per km²15,3551,407
Museums within 10 km767
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 Key West 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.