VacationSelector
Lion's Head above Clifton Beach, Cape Town
Cape TownLion's Head above Clifton Beach
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art

Photos: Cape Town by Stephan Louis, Pexels License; Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Cape Town or Santa Fe?

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 Cape Town for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • nightlife

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

Choose Santa Fe for

  • shopping
  • wellness
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Fe’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. Cape Town 58, Santa Fe 5: Cape Town leads by 53 points.
Food & drink. Cape Town 72, Santa Fe 62: Cape Town leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Cape Town 60, Santa Fe 66: Santa Fe leads by 6 points.
Nightlife. Cape Town 60, Santa Fe 22: Cape Town leads by 38 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cape Town 98, Santa Fe 80: Cape Town leads by 18 points.
Day trips. Cape Town 68, Santa Fe 70: Santa Fe leads by 2 points.
Good for families. Cape Town 58, Santa Fe 45: Cape Town leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Cape Town 35, Santa Fe 40: Santa Fe leads by 5 points.
Shopping & style. Cape Town 50, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Cape Town 72, Santa Fe 30: Cape Town leads by 42 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cape Town 52, Santa Fe 55: Santa Fe leads by 3 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cape Town 45, Santa Fe 55: Santa Fe leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cape Town and Santa Fe.

Your match

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

Cape Town
Best match
61match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Santa Fe
49match

Wins on shopping 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.

Cape Town in July

18 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
89 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
15 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Santa Fe in July

31 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
60 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
Cape TownSanta Fe

Where the figures come from

Santa Fe's station stands 199 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Santa Fe 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. Cape Town: 1991-2020 normals, Cape Town Airport (17.5 km from centre). Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCape TownSanta Fe
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign Language-
CurrencyRand (ZAR)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation5 m2,134 m
Main airportCape Town International Airport (CPT)18 km from centre45 non-stop destinationsSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCape TownSanta Fe
City population3,776,31387,505
People per km²1,538645
Museums within 10 km2210
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km30
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cape Town or Santa Fe 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). 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. 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.