VacationSelector
The entrance to the Big Lagoon, El Nido
El NidoThe entrance to the Big Lagoon
The Sanctuary of Truth by the sea, Pattaya
PattayaThe Sanctuary of Truth by the sea

Photos: El Nido by nennnn, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Pattaya by Matrix, Pexels License.

El Nido or Pattaya?

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
  • beaches

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

Choose Pattaya for

  • nightlife
  • day trips
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Pattaya’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, Pattaya 66: El Nido leads by 26 points.
Food & drink. El Nido 27, Pattaya 58: Pattaya leads by 31 points.
Culture & sights. El Nido 4, Pattaya 30: Pattaya leads by 26 points.
Nightlife. El Nido 30, Pattaya 76: Pattaya leads by 46 points.
Nature & outdoors. El Nido 87, Pattaya 40: El Nido leads by 47 points.
Day trips. El Nido 8, Pattaya 52: Pattaya leads by 44 points.
Good for families. El Nido 40, Pattaya 55: Pattaya leads by 15 points.
Getting around. El Nido 22, Pattaya 36: Pattaya leads by 14 points.
Shopping & style. El Nido 7, Pattaya 42: Pattaya leads by 35 points.
Affordability. El Nido 64, Pattaya 84: Pattaya leads by 20 points.
Live music & performing arts. El Nido 7, Pattaya 30: Pattaya leads by 23 points.
Wellness & relaxation. El Nido 46, Pattaya 58: Pattaya leads by 12 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: El Nido and Pattaya.

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 beaches with your weighting.

Pattaya
Best match
52match

Wins on nightlife 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

Pattaya in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
102 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
El NidoPattaya

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.

Pattaya's temperatures are measured 31 km from the centre, at Sattahip.

Pattaya 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.

Pattaya's sunshine is measured 86 km from the centre, at Bangna Agromet / Ban Khlong Samrong.

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. Pattaya: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1961-1990, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Sattahip (31.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureEl NidoPattaya
Official languageEnglish, Filipino, TaglishThai
CurrencyPhilippine Peso (PHP)Baht (THB)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+8UTC+7
Emergency number911Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation35 m35 m
Main airportEl Nido Airport (ENI)4 km from centre5 non-stop destinationsSuvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)83 km from centre150 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year18 days-

By the numbers

MeasureEl NidoPattaya
City population51,367119,532
People per km²56-
Museums within 10 km00
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 Pattaya 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.