VacationSelector
Wat Chiang Man in the old city, Chiang Mai
Chiang MaiWat Chiang Man in the old city
The church of San Estanislao at Altos de Chavón, La Romana
La RomanaThe church of San Estanislao at Altos de Chavón

Photos: Chiang Mai by Gije Cho, Pexels License; La Romana by Edgar El, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Chiang Mai or La Romana?

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 Chiang Mai for

  • culture and sights
  • food and drink
  • prices

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

Choose La Romana for

  • beaches
  • day trips
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on La Romana’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. Chiang Mai 6, La Romana 84: La Romana leads by 78 points.
Food & drink. Chiang Mai 78, La Romana 38: Chiang Mai leads by 40 points.
Culture & sights. Chiang Mai 65, La Romana 24: Chiang Mai leads by 41 points.
Nightlife. Chiang Mai 45, La Romana 30: Chiang Mai leads by 15 points.
Nature & outdoors. Chiang Mai 73, La Romana 62: Chiang Mai leads by 11 points.
Day trips. Chiang Mai 48, La Romana 52: La Romana leads by 4 points.
Good for families. Chiang Mai 55, La Romana 56: La Romana leads by 1 points.
Getting around. Chiang Mai 38, La Romana 24: Chiang Mai leads by 14 points.
Shopping & style. Chiang Mai 62, La Romana 28: Chiang Mai leads by 34 points.
Affordability. Chiang Mai 90, La Romana 50: Chiang Mai leads by 40 points.
Live music & performing arts. Chiang Mai 30, La Romana 17: Chiang Mai leads by 13 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Chiang Mai 82, La Romana 44: Chiang Mai leads by 38 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Chiang Mai and La Romana.

Your match

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

Chiang Mai
Best match
56match

Wins on culture and sights and food and drink with your weighting.

La Romana
42match

Wins on beaches 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.

Chiang Mai in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
No seasea
13 hdaylight a day

La Romana in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
87 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Chiang MaiLa Romana

Where the figures come from

La Romana's temperatures are measured 65 km from the centre, at Punta Cana.

La Romana 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. Chiang Mai: 1991-2020 normals, Chiang Mai (0.6 km from centre). La Romana: 1993-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Punta Cana (65.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureChiang MaiLa Romana
Official languageThaiSpanish
CurrencyBaht (THB)Dominican Peso (DOP)
SocketsABCF220 V, 50 HzAB110 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+7UTC-4
Emergency numberPolice 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199911
Elevation310 m10 m
Main airportChiang Mai International Airport (CNX)3 km from centre28 non-stop destinationsCasa De Campo International Airport (LRM)7 km from centre13 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-13 days

By the numbers

MeasureChiang MaiLa Romana
City population1,198,000139,238
People per km²2,958512
Museums within 10 km60
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Chiang Mai or La Romana 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. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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.