VacationSelector
The entrance to the Big Lagoon, El Nido
El NidoThe entrance to the Big Lagoon
The Teatro Amazonas, Manaus
ManausThe Teatro Amazonas

Photos: El Nido by nennnn, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Manaus by Jardelsliumba, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

El Nido or Manaus?

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
  • wellness
  • families

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

Choose Manaus for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Manaus’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, Manaus 38: El Nido leads by 54 points.
Food & drink. El Nido 27, Manaus 56: Manaus leads by 29 points.
Culture & sights. El Nido 4, Manaus 46: Manaus leads by 42 points.
Nightlife. El Nido 30, Manaus 42: Manaus leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. El Nido 87, Manaus 86: El Nido leads by 1 points.
Day trips. El Nido 8, Manaus 12: Manaus leads by 4 points.
Good for families. El Nido 40, Manaus 35: El Nido leads by 5 points.
Getting around. El Nido 22, Manaus 27: Manaus leads by 5 points.
Shopping & style. El Nido 7, Manaus 36: Manaus leads by 29 points.
Affordability. El Nido 64, Manaus 63: El Nido leads by 1 points.
Live music & performing arts. El Nido 7, Manaus 54: Manaus leads by 47 points.
Wellness & relaxation. El Nido 46, Manaus 20: El Nido leads by 26 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: El Nido and Manaus.

Your match

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

El Nido
36match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

Manaus
Best match
43match

Wins on live music and the arts 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.

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

Manaus in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
74 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
12 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
El NidoManaus

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.

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. Manaus: 1991-2020 normals, Manaus (1.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureEl NidoManaus
Official languageEnglish, Filipino, TaglishPortuguese
CurrencyPhilippine Peso (PHP)Brazilian Real (BRL)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzCN60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+8UTC-4
Emergency number911Police 190, ambulance 192, fire 193
Elevation35 m92 m
Main airportEl Nido Airport (ENI)4 km from centre5 non-stop destinationsEduardo Gomes International Airport (MAO)9 km from centre21 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year18 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureEl NidoManaus
City population51,3672,303,732
People per km²56202
Museums within 10 km013
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

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