VacationSelector
A dhow below the towers of West Bay, Doha
DohaA dhow below the towers of West Bay
The Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock, Petra
PetraThe Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock

Photos: Doha by Gregory Hawken Kramer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Petra by Yasir Gürbüz, Pexels License.

Doha or Petra?

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 Doha for

  • shopping
  • beaches
  • families

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

Choose Petra for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • culture and sights
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Petra’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. Doha 45, Petra 5: Doha leads by 40 points.
Food & drink. Doha 55, Petra 22: Doha leads by 33 points.
Culture & sights. Doha 55, Petra 85: Petra leads by 30 points.
Nightlife. Doha 20, Petra 5: Doha leads by 15 points.
Nature & outdoors. Doha 7, Petra 78: Petra leads by 71 points.
Day trips. Doha 5, Petra 30: Petra leads by 25 points.
Good for families. Doha 60, Petra 25: Doha leads by 35 points.
Getting around. Doha 45, Petra 25: Doha leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Doha 60, Petra 18: Doha leads by 42 points.
Affordability. Doha 38, Petra 45: Petra leads by 7 points.
Live music & performing arts. Doha 30, Petra 10: Doha leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Doha 38, Petra 28: Doha leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Doha and Petra.

Your match

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

Doha
Best match
38match

Wins on shopping and beaches with your weighting.

Petra
31match

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

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Doha in July

43 °Cdaytime high
33 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
33 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Petra in July

35 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

01020304050JFMAMJJASOND
DohaPetra

Where the figures come from

Petra's temperatures are measured 34 km from the centre, at Ma'An.

Petra's station stands 219 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

Petra 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. Doha: 1991-2020 normals, Doha International Airport (5.5 km from centre). Petra: 1991-2020 normals, Ma'An (33.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureDohaPetra
Official languageArabicArabic
CurrencyQatari Rial (QAR)Jordanian Dinar (JOD)
SocketsG240 V, 50 HzBCFGJ230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+3UTC+3
Emergency number999911
Elevation0 m850 m
Main airportHamad International Airport (DOH)8 km from centre195 non-stop destinationsKing Hussein International Airport (AQJ)90 km from centre5 non-stop destinations

By the numbers

MeasureDohaPetra
City population1,186,023-
People per km²8,985-
Museums within 10 km62
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C9 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Doha or Petra 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). 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.