VacationSelector
The entrance to the Big Lagoon, El Nido
El NidoThe entrance to the Big Lagoon
Bougainvillea and the dome of Agia Napa Cathedral, Limassol
LimassolBougainvillea and the dome of Agia Napa Cathedral

Photos: El Nido by nennnn, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Limassol by Julian Lupyan, CC0.

El Nido or Limassol?

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

  • nature and the outdoors
  • prices
  • beaches

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

Choose Limassol for

  • day trips
  • shopping
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Limassol’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, Limassol 77: El Nido leads by 15 points.
Food & drink. El Nido 27, Limassol 58: Limassol leads by 31 points.
Culture & sights. El Nido 4, Limassol 38: Limassol leads by 34 points.
Nightlife. El Nido 30, Limassol 50: Limassol leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. El Nido 87, Limassol 65: El Nido leads by 22 points.
Day trips. El Nido 8, Limassol 76: Limassol leads by 68 points.
Good for families. El Nido 40, Limassol 63: Limassol leads by 23 points.
Getting around. El Nido 22, Limassol 38: Limassol leads by 16 points.
Shopping & style. El Nido 7, Limassol 42: Limassol leads by 35 points.
Affordability. El Nido 64, Limassol 44: El Nido leads by 20 points.
Live music & performing arts. El Nido 7, Limassol 32: Limassol leads by 25 points.
Wellness & relaxation. El Nido 46, Limassol 42: El Nido leads by 4 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: El Nido and Limassol.

Your match

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

El Nido
36match

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

Limassol
Best match
52match

Wins on day trips and shopping 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

Limassol in July

31 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
13 hsunshine a day
26 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
El NidoLimassol

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.

Limassol 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.

Limassol's sunshine is measured 59 km from the centre, at Larnaca Airport.

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. Limassol: 1998-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Akrotiri (11.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureEl NidoLimassol
Official languageEnglish, Filipino, TaglishTurkish, Greek, Modern Greek
CurrencyPhilippine Peso (PHP)Euro (EUR)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzG240 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+8UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation35 m10 m
Main airportEl Nido Airport (ENI)4 km from centre5 non-stop destinationsLarnaca International Airport (LCA)58 km from centre112 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year18 days17 days

By the numbers

MeasureEl NidoLimassol
City population51,367107,970
People per km²562,405
Museums within 10 km02
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km03
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months6 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow El Nido or Limassol 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. 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.

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.