VacationSelector
The entrance to the Big Lagoon, El Nido
El NidoThe entrance to the Big Lagoon
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera

Photos: El Nido by nennnn, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License.

El Nido or Kyoto?

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 El Nido for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • prices

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

Choose Kyoto for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Kyoto’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. El Nido 92, Kyoto 15: El Nido leads by 77 points.
Food & drink. El Nido 27, Kyoto 85: Kyoto leads by 58 points.
Culture & sights. El Nido 4, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 92 points.
Nightlife. El Nido 30, Kyoto 35: Kyoto leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. El Nido 87, Kyoto 70: El Nido leads by 17 points.
Day trips. El Nido 8, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 88 points.
Good for families. El Nido 40, Kyoto 68: Kyoto leads by 28 points.
Getting around. El Nido 22, Kyoto 72: Kyoto leads by 50 points.
Shopping & style. El Nido 7, Kyoto 72: Kyoto leads by 65 points.
Affordability. El Nido 64, Kyoto 50: El Nido leads by 14 points.
Live music & performing arts. El Nido 7, Kyoto 60: Kyoto leads by 53 points.
Wellness & relaxation. El Nido 46, Kyoto 70: Kyoto leads by 24 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: El Nido and Kyoto.

Your match

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

El Nido
36match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Kyoto
Best match
66match

Wins on culture and sights 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.

El Nido in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
368 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Kyoto in July

31 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
225 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
El NidoKyoto

Where the figures come from

El Nido has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Kyoto's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Osaka.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. El Nido: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureEl NidoKyoto
Official languageEnglish, Filipino, TaglishJapanese
CurrencyPhilippine Peso (PHP)Yen (JPY)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+8UTC+9
Emergency number911Police 110, fire 119
Elevation35 m51 m
Main airportEl Nido Airport (ENI)4 km from centre5 non-stop destinationsKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year18 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureEl NidoKyoto
City population51,3671,463,723
People per km²561,768
Museums within 10 km077
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km04
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 El Nido or Kyoto somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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.