VacationSelector
The entrance to the Big Lagoon, El Nido
El NidoThe entrance to the Big Lagoon
The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, Muscat
MuscatThe Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque

Photos: El Nido by nennnn, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Muscat by Alli Khalil, CC BY 4.0, cropped.

El Nido or Muscat?

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
  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Muscat for

  • day trips
  • culture and sights
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Muscat’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, Muscat 72: El Nido leads by 20 points.
Food & drink. El Nido 27, Muscat 44: Muscat leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. El Nido 4, Muscat 55: Muscat leads by 51 points.
Nightlife. El Nido 30, Muscat 14: El Nido leads by 16 points.
Nature & outdoors. El Nido 87, Muscat 70: El Nido leads by 17 points.
Day trips. El Nido 8, Muscat 62: Muscat leads by 54 points.
Good for families. El Nido 40, Muscat 52: Muscat leads by 12 points.
Getting around. El Nido 22, Muscat 20: El Nido leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. El Nido 7, Muscat 42: Muscat leads by 35 points.
Affordability. El Nido 64, Muscat 45: El Nido leads by 19 points.
Live music & performing arts. El Nido 7, Muscat 40: Muscat leads by 33 points.
Wellness & relaxation. El Nido 46, Muscat 55: Muscat leads by 9 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: El Nido and Muscat.

Your match

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

El Nido
36match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Muscat
Best match
48match

Wins on day trips 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

Muscat in July

33 °Cdaytime high
30 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
31 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
El NidoMuscat

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.

Muscat's sunshine is measured 32 km from the centre, at Seeb, International 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. Muscat: 1991-2020 normals, Qaboos Port (3.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureEl NidoMuscat
Official languageEnglish, Filipino, TaglishArabic
CurrencyPhilippine Peso (PHP)Rial Omani (OMR)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzCG240 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+8UTC+4
Emergency number911968
Elevation35 m69 m
Main airportEl Nido Airport (ENI)4 km from centre5 non-stop destinationsMuscat International Airport (MCT)31 km from centre83 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year18 days-

By the numbers

MeasureEl NidoMuscat
City population51,3671,421,409
People per km²56406
Museums within 10 km010
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

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