Photos: Fes by Ideophagous, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.
Fes or Santa Fe?
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 Fes for
- prices
- wellness
- culture and sights
What lies behind each score is written up on Fes’s own page.
Choose Santa Fe for
- nature and the outdoors
- families
- live music and the arts
What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Fe’s own page.
Scoreboard
Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.
What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Fes and Santa Fe.
Your match
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.
Too close to call, level with your weighting
Wins on prices and wellness with your weighting.
Wins on nature and the outdoors and families with your weighting.
What matters to you?
When should you go?
Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.
Fes in July
Santa Fe in July
Daytime high, °C
Rainfall in the month, mm
Where the figures come from
Fes's station stands 171 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.
Fes 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.
Fes's sunshine is measured 52 km from the centre, at Meknes.
Santa Fe's station stands 199 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.
Santa Fe 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. Fes: 1999-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Fes-Sais (12.4 km from centre). Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre).
Before you go
| Measure | Fes | Santa Fe |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Arabic, Standard Moroccan Tamazight | - |
| Currency | Moroccan Dirham (MAD) | US Dollar (USD) |
| Sockets | CE50 Hz | AB120 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1 | UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer |
| Emergency number | Police 19/112, ambulance 15, fire 15 | 911 |
| Elevation | 408 m | 2,134 m |
| Main airport | Fes Saïss International Airport (FEZ)13 km from centre35 non-stop destinations | Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Fes | Santa Fe |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 1,167,842 | 87,505 |
| People per km² | 3,650 | 645 |
| Museums within 10 km | 2 | 10 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 1 | 0 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Fes or Santa Fe somewhere new.