VacationSelector
The entrance to the Big Lagoon, El Nido
El NidoThe entrance to the Big Lagoon
The Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock, Petra
PetraThe Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock

Photos: El Nido by nennnn, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Petra by Yasir Gürbüz, Pexels License.

El Nido or Petra?

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
  • nightlife
  • prices

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

Choose Petra for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Petra’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, Petra 5: El Nido leads by 87 points.
Food & drink. El Nido 27, Petra 22: El Nido leads by 5 points.
Culture & sights. El Nido 4, Petra 85: Petra leads by 81 points.
Nightlife. El Nido 30, Petra 5: El Nido leads by 25 points.
Nature & outdoors. El Nido 87, Petra 78: El Nido leads by 9 points.
Day trips. El Nido 8, Petra 30: Petra leads by 22 points.
Good for families. El Nido 40, Petra 25: El Nido leads by 15 points.
Getting around. El Nido 22, Petra 25: Petra leads by 3 points.
Shopping & style. El Nido 7, Petra 18: Petra leads by 11 points.
Affordability. El Nido 64, Petra 45: El Nido leads by 19 points.
Live music & performing arts. El Nido 7, Petra 10: Petra leads by 3 points.
Wellness & relaxation. El Nido 46, Petra 28: El Nido leads by 18 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: El Nido and Petra.

Your match

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

El Nido
Best match
36match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Petra
31match

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

Petra in July

35 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
El NidoPetra

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.

Petra's temperatures are measured 34 km from the centre, at Ma'An.

Petra's station stands 219 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

Petra 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.

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. Petra: 1991-2020 normals, Ma'An (33.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureEl NidoPetra
Official languageEnglish, Filipino, TaglishArabic
CurrencyPhilippine Peso (PHP)Jordanian Dinar (JOD)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzBCFGJ230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+8UTC+3
Emergency number911911
Elevation35 m850 m
Main airportEl Nido Airport (ENI)4 km from centre5 non-stop destinationsKing Hussein International Airport (AQJ)90 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year18 days-

By the numbers

MeasureEl NidoPetra
City population51,367-
People per km²56-
Museums within 10 km02
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 Petra 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.