VacationSelector
Yellow colonial houses in the walled city, Cartagena
CartagenaYellow colonial houses in the walled city
The colonnaded court of Luxor Temple, Luxor
LuxorThe colonnaded court of Luxor Temple

Photos: Cartagena by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Luxor by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Cartagena or Luxor?

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

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • food and drink

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

Choose Luxor for

  • prices
  • day trips
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Luxor’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, Luxor 6: Cartagena leads by 64 points.
Food & drink. Cartagena 62, Luxor 30: Cartagena leads by 32 points.
Culture & sights. Cartagena 68, Luxor 95: Luxor leads by 27 points.
Nightlife. Cartagena 70, Luxor 10: Cartagena leads by 60 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cartagena 46, Luxor 32: Cartagena leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Cartagena 33, Luxor 62: Luxor leads by 29 points.
Good for families. Cartagena 40, Luxor 30: Cartagena leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Cartagena 54, Luxor 35: Cartagena leads by 19 points.
Shopping & style. Cartagena 48, Luxor 25: Cartagena leads by 23 points.
Affordability. Cartagena 60, Luxor 90: Luxor leads by 30 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cartagena 40, Luxor 10: Cartagena leads by 30 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cartagena 40, Luxor 28: Cartagena leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cartagena and Luxor.

Your match

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

Cartagena
Best match
53match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Luxor
38match

Wins on prices and day trips 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

Luxor in July

41 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
CartagenaLuxor

Where the figures come from

Luxor 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. Cartagena: 1991-2020 normals, Cartagena / Rafael Nunez (3.1 km from centre). Luxor: 1998-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Luxor (6.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCartagenaLuxor
Official languageSpanishArabic
CurrencyColombian Peso (COP)Egyptian Pound (EGP)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number123Police 122, ambulance 123, fire 180
Elevation2 m89 m
Main airportRafael Nuñez International Airport (CTG)2 km from centre26 non-stop destinationsLuxor International Airport (LXR)7 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureCartagenaLuxor
City population914,552202,232
People per km²1,599486
Museums within 10 km24
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cartagena or Luxor 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.