VacationSelector
Yellow colonial houses in the walled city, Cartagena
CartagenaYellow colonial houses in the walled city
Castel Sant'Elmo and the Certosa di San Martino, Naples
NaplesCastel Sant'Elmo and the Certosa di San Martino

Photos: Cartagena by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Naples by pietro scerrato, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Cartagena or Naples?

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

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

Choose Naples for

  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Naples’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, Naples 50: Cartagena leads by 20 points.
Food & drink. Cartagena 62, Naples 83: Naples leads by 21 points.
Culture & sights. Cartagena 68, Naples 87: Naples leads by 19 points.
Nightlife. Cartagena 70, Naples 60: Cartagena leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cartagena 46, Naples 77: Naples leads by 31 points.
Day trips. Cartagena 33, Naples 96: Naples leads by 63 points.
Good for families. Cartagena 40, Naples 45: Naples leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Cartagena and Naples are level on 54.
Shopping & style. Cartagena 48, Naples 60: Naples leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Cartagena 60, Naples 63: Naples leads by 3 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cartagena 40, Naples 66: Naples leads by 26 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cartagena 40, Naples 44: Naples leads by 4 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cartagena and Naples.

Your match

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

Cartagena
53match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Naples
Best match
65match

Wins on day trips and nature and the outdoors 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

Naples in July

30 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
23 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
CartagenaNaples

Where the figures come from

Naples 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.

Naples's sunshine is measured 28 km from the centre, at Grazzanise.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cartagena: 1991-2020 normals, Cartagena / Rafael Nunez (3.1 km from centre). Naples: 2005-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Napoli / Capodichino (4.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCartagenaNaples
Official languageSpanishItalian
CurrencyColombian Peso (COP)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number123112
Elevation2 m17 m
Main airportRafael Nuñez International Airport (CTG)2 km from centre26 non-stop destinationsNaples International Airport (NAP)7 km from centre131 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCartagenaNaples
City population914,552913,462
People per km²1,5997,676
Museums within 10 km265
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km15
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cartagena or Naples 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.