VacationSelector
The Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires
Buenos AiresThe Teatro Colón
The Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket, Phuket
PhuketThe Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket

Photos: Buenos Aires by Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Phuket by Mussi Katz, CC0.

Buenos Aires or Phuket?

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

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

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

Choose Phuket for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Phuket’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, Phuket 90: Phuket leads by 83 points.
Food & drink. Buenos Aires 75, Phuket 66: Buenos Aires leads by 9 points.
Culture & sights. Buenos Aires 71, Phuket 35: Buenos Aires leads by 36 points.
Nightlife. Buenos Aires 95, Phuket 72: Buenos Aires leads by 23 points.
Nature & outdoors. Buenos Aires 38, Phuket 80: Phuket leads by 42 points.
Day trips. Buenos Aires 60, Phuket 45: Buenos Aires leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Buenos Aires 52, Phuket 65: Phuket leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Buenos Aires 62, Phuket 22: Buenos Aires leads by 40 points.
Shopping & style. Buenos Aires 60, Phuket 42: Buenos Aires leads by 18 points.
Affordability. Buenos Aires 55, Phuket 68: Phuket leads by 13 points.
Live music & performing arts. Buenos Aires 75, Phuket 20: Buenos Aires leads by 55 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Buenos Aires 28, Phuket 82: Phuket leads by 54 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Buenos Aires and Phuket.

Your match

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

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Buenos Aires
57match

Wins on live music and the arts and getting around with your weighting.

Phuket
57match

Wins on beaches and wellness 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

Phuket in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
287 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
Buenos AiresPhuket

Where the figures come from

Phuket's temperatures are measured 27 km from the centre, at Phuket Airport.

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). Phuket: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1961-1990) normals, Phuket Airport (26.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBuenos AiresPhuket
Official languageSpanishThai
CurrencyArgentine Peso (ARS)Baht (THB)
SocketsCI220 V, 50 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC-3UTC+7
Emergency number117 or 911Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation25 m19 m
Main airportEzeiza International Airport - Ministro Pistarini (EZE)28 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsPhuket International Airport (HKT)27 km from centre85 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days-

By the numbers

MeasureBuenos AiresPhuket
City population3,121,70777,610
People per km²15,3556,468
Museums within 10 km762
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 Phuket 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. 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.