VacationSelector
The 1933 courthouse in downtown Fort Myers, now an arts centre, Fort Myers
Fort MyersThe 1933 courthouse in downtown Fort Myers, now an arts centre
The Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket, Phuket
PhuketThe Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket

Photos: Fort Myers by Ebyabe, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Phuket by Mussi Katz, CC0.

Fort Myers or Phuket?

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 Fort Myers for

  • live music and the arts
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Fort Myers’s own page.

Choose Phuket for

  • wellness
  • nightlife
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Phuket’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. Fort Myers 77, Phuket 90: Phuket leads by 13 points.
Food & drink. Fort Myers 40, Phuket 66: Phuket leads by 26 points.
Culture & sights. Fort Myers 32, Phuket 35: Phuket leads by 3 points.
Nightlife. Fort Myers 32, Phuket 72: Phuket leads by 40 points.
Nature & outdoors. Fort Myers 63, Phuket 80: Phuket leads by 17 points.
Day trips. Fort Myers 50, Phuket 45: Fort Myers leads by 5 points.
Good for families. Fort Myers 62, Phuket 65: Phuket leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Fort Myers 15, Phuket 22: Phuket leads by 7 points.
Shopping & style. Fort Myers 38, Phuket 42: Phuket leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Fort Myers 38, Phuket 68: Phuket leads by 30 points.
Live music & performing arts. Fort Myers 36, Phuket 20: Fort Myers leads by 16 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Fort Myers 35, Phuket 82: Phuket leads by 47 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Fort Myers and Phuket.

Your match

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

Fort Myers
43match

Wins on live music and the arts and day trips with your weighting.

Phuket
Best match
57match

Wins on wellness and nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Fort Myers in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
220 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Phuket in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
287 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
Fort MyersPhuket

Where the figures come from

Fort Myers 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.

Phuket's temperatures are measured 27 km from the centre, at Phuket Airport.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Fort Myers: 1991-2020 normals, Fort Myers / Page Park (4.5 km from centre). Phuket: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1961-1990) normals, Phuket Airport (26.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureFort MyersPhuket
Official language-Thai
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Baht (THB)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+7
Emergency number911Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation3 m19 m
Main airportSouthwest Florida International Airport (RSW)12 km from centre79 non-stop destinationsPhuket International Airport (HKT)27 km from centre85 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days-

By the numbers

MeasureFort MyersPhuket
City population86,39577,610
People per km²6816,468
Museums within 10 km32
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C10 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Fort Myers or Phuket somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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. 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.