VacationSelector
The pastel houses of Rainbow Row, Charleston
CharlestonThe pastel houses of Rainbow Row
The Sanctuary of Truth by the sea, Pattaya
PattayaThe Sanctuary of Truth by the sea

Photos: Charleston by NealVickers, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Pattaya by Matrix, Pexels License.

Charleston or Pattaya?

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 Charleston for

  • culture and sights
  • nature and the outdoors
  • food and drink

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

Choose Pattaya for

  • prices
  • nightlife
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Pattaya’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. Charleston 72, Pattaya 66: Charleston leads by 6 points.
Food & drink. Charleston 72, Pattaya 58: Charleston leads by 14 points.
Culture & sights. Charleston 64, Pattaya 30: Charleston leads by 34 points.
Nightlife. Charleston 44, Pattaya 76: Pattaya leads by 32 points.
Nature & outdoors. Charleston 55, Pattaya 40: Charleston leads by 15 points.
Day trips. Charleston 62, Pattaya 52: Charleston leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Charleston 60, Pattaya 55: Charleston leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Charleston 46, Pattaya 36: Charleston leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Charleston 55, Pattaya 42: Charleston leads by 13 points.
Affordability. Charleston 27, Pattaya 84: Pattaya leads by 57 points.
Live music & performing arts. Charleston 42, Pattaya 30: Charleston leads by 12 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Charleston 40, Pattaya 58: Pattaya leads by 18 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Charleston and Pattaya.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Charleston
53match

Wins on culture and sights and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Pattaya
52match

Wins on prices and nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Charleston in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
167 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Pattaya in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
102 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
CharlestonPattaya

Where the figures come from

Pattaya's temperatures are measured 31 km from the centre, at Sattahip.

Pattaya 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.

Pattaya's sunshine is measured 86 km from the centre, at Bangna Agromet / Ban Khlong Samrong.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Charleston: 1991-2020 normals, Charleston Airport (16.1 km from centre). Pattaya: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1961-1990, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Sattahip (31.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCharlestonPattaya
Official language-Thai
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Baht (THB)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+7
Emergency number911Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation6 m35 m
Main airportCharleston International Airport (CHS)16 km from centre56 non-stop destinationsSuvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)83 km from centre150 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days-

By the numbers

MeasureCharlestonPattaya
City population150,227119,532
People per km²532-
Museums within 10 km190
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C6 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Charleston or Pattaya 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. 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.