VacationSelector
The entrance to the Big Lagoon, El Nido
El NidoThe entrance to the Big Lagoon
Cliff-top hotels above the harbour, Sorrento
SorrentoCliff-top hotels above the harbour

Photos: El Nido by nennnn, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Sorrento by Berthold Werner, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

El Nido or Sorrento?

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 Sorrento for

  • day trips
  • getting around
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Sorrento’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, Sorrento 60: El Nido leads by 32 points.
Food & drink. El Nido 27, Sorrento 60: Sorrento leads by 33 points.
Culture & sights. El Nido 4, Sorrento 32: Sorrento leads by 28 points.
Nightlife. El Nido 30, Sorrento 28: El Nido leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. El Nido 87, Sorrento 80: El Nido leads by 7 points.
Day trips. El Nido 8, Sorrento 95: Sorrento leads by 87 points.
Good for families. El Nido 40, Sorrento 42: Sorrento leads by 2 points.
Getting around. El Nido 22, Sorrento 58: Sorrento leads by 36 points.
Shopping & style. El Nido 7, Sorrento 38: Sorrento leads by 31 points.
Affordability. El Nido 64, Sorrento 32: El Nido leads by 32 points.
Live music & performing arts. El Nido 7, Sorrento 20: Sorrento leads by 13 points.
Wellness & relaxation. El Nido 46, Sorrento 48: Sorrento leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: El Nido and Sorrento.

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.

Sorrento
Best match
49match

Wins on day trips and getting around 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

Sorrento in July

29 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
21 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
El NidoSorrento

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.

Sorrento 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.

Sorrento's sunshine is measured 54 km from the centre, at Grazzanise.

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. Sorrento: 2005-2025 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Capri (17 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureEl NidoSorrento
Official languageEnglish, Filipino, TaglishItalian
CurrencyPhilippine Peso (PHP)Euro (EUR)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+8UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation35 m50 m
Main airportEl Nido Airport (ENI)4 km from centre5 non-stop destinationsNaples International Airport (NAP)30 km from centre131 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year18 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureEl NidoSorrento
City population51,36715,407
People per km²561,541
Museums within 10 km06
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km05
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months5 months

Where else could you go?

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