VacationSelector
Yellow colonial houses in the walled city, Cartagena
CartagenaYellow colonial houses in the walled city
The entrance to the Big Lagoon, El Nido
El NidoThe entrance to the Big Lagoon

Photos: Cartagena by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; El Nido by nennnn, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Cartagena or El Nido?

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 Cartagena for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • nightlife

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

Choose El Nido for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on El Nido’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. Cartagena 70, El Nido 92: El Nido leads by 22 points.
Food & drink. Cartagena 62, El Nido 27: Cartagena leads by 35 points.
Culture & sights. Cartagena 68, El Nido 4: Cartagena leads by 64 points.
Nightlife. Cartagena 70, El Nido 30: Cartagena leads by 40 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cartagena 46, El Nido 87: El Nido leads by 41 points.
Day trips. Cartagena 33, El Nido 8: Cartagena leads by 25 points.
Good for families. Cartagena and El Nido are level on 40.
Getting around. Cartagena 54, El Nido 22: Cartagena leads by 32 points.
Shopping & style. Cartagena 48, El Nido 7: Cartagena leads by 41 points.
Affordability. Cartagena 60, El Nido 64: El Nido leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cartagena 40, El Nido 7: Cartagena leads by 33 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cartagena 40, El Nido 46: El Nido leads by 6 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cartagena and El Nido.

Your match

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

Cartagena
Best match
53match

Wins on culture and sights and shopping with your weighting.

El Nido
36match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and beaches with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Cartagena in July

31 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
124 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

El Nido in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
368 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

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
CartagenaEl Nido

Where the figures come from

El Nido has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cartagena: 1991-2020 normals, Cartagena / Rafael Nunez (3.1 km from centre). El Nido: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureCartagenaEl Nido
Official languageSpanishEnglish, Filipino, Taglish
CurrencyColombian Peso (COP)Philippine Peso (PHP)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzABC220 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+8
Emergency number123911
Elevation2 m35 m
Main airportRafael Nuñez International Airport (CTG)2 km from centre26 non-stop destinationsEl Nido Airport (ENI)4 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days18 days

By the numbers

MeasureCartagenaEl Nido
City population914,55251,367
People per km²1,59956
Museums within 10 km20
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cartagena or El Nido 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.