VacationSelector
The Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires
Buenos AiresThe Teatro Colón
The Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock, Petra
PetraThe Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock

Photos: Buenos Aires by Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Petra by Yasir Gürbüz, Pexels License.

Buenos Aires or Petra?

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

  • nightlife
  • live music and the arts
  • food and drink

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

Choose Petra for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Petra’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, Petra 5: Buenos Aires leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Buenos Aires 75, Petra 22: Buenos Aires leads by 53 points.
Culture & sights. Buenos Aires 71, Petra 85: Petra leads by 14 points.
Nightlife. Buenos Aires 95, Petra 5: Buenos Aires leads by 90 points.
Nature & outdoors. Buenos Aires 38, Petra 78: Petra leads by 40 points.
Day trips. Buenos Aires 60, Petra 30: Buenos Aires leads by 30 points.
Good for families. Buenos Aires 52, Petra 25: Buenos Aires leads by 27 points.
Getting around. Buenos Aires 62, Petra 25: Buenos Aires leads by 37 points.
Shopping & style. Buenos Aires 60, Petra 18: Buenos Aires leads by 42 points.
Affordability. Buenos Aires 55, Petra 45: Buenos Aires leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. Buenos Aires 75, Petra 10: Buenos Aires leads by 65 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Buenos Aires and Petra are level on 28.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Buenos Aires and Petra.

Your match

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

Buenos Aires
Best match
57match

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

Petra
31match

Wins on nature and the outdoors 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

Petra in July

35 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
Buenos AiresPetra

Where the figures come from

Petra's temperatures are measured 34 km from the centre, at Ma'An.

Petra's station stands 219 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

Petra 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). Petra: 1991-2020 normals, Ma'An (33.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBuenos AiresPetra
Official languageSpanishArabic
CurrencyArgentine Peso (ARS)Jordanian Dinar (JOD)
SocketsCI220 V, 50 HzBCFGJ230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-3UTC+3
Emergency number117 or 911911
Elevation25 m850 m
Main airportEzeiza International Airport - Ministro Pistarini (EZE)28 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsKing Hussein International Airport (AQJ)90 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days-

By the numbers

MeasureBuenos AiresPetra
City population3,121,707-
People per km²15,355-
Museums within 10 km762
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Buenos Aires or Petra 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.