VacationSelector
The red five-storey pagoda of Tocho-ji, Fukuoka
FukuokaThe red five-storey pagoda of Tocho-ji
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art

Photos: Fukuoka by Nick-D, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Fukuoka 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 Fukuoka for

  • beaches
  • getting around
  • nightlife

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

Choose Santa Fe for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • culture and sights
  • 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.

Beaches & swimming. Fukuoka 50, Santa Fe 5: Fukuoka leads by 45 points.
Food & drink. Fukuoka 82, Santa Fe 62: Fukuoka leads by 20 points.
Culture & sights. Fukuoka 50, Santa Fe 66: Santa Fe leads by 16 points.
Nightlife. Fukuoka 60, Santa Fe 22: Fukuoka leads by 38 points.
Nature & outdoors. Fukuoka 62, Santa Fe 80: Santa Fe leads by 18 points.
Day trips. Fukuoka 84, Santa Fe 70: Fukuoka leads by 14 points.
Good for families. Fukuoka 78, Santa Fe 45: Fukuoka leads by 33 points.
Getting around. Fukuoka 82, Santa Fe 40: Fukuoka leads by 42 points.
Shopping & style. Fukuoka 65, Santa Fe 62: Fukuoka leads by 3 points.
Affordability. Fukuoka 58, Santa Fe 30: Fukuoka leads by 28 points.
Live music & performing arts. Fukuoka 45, Santa Fe 55: Santa Fe leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Fukuoka 60, Santa Fe 55: Fukuoka leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Fukuoka and Santa Fe.

Your match

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

Fukuoka
Best match
65match

Wins on beaches and getting around with your weighting.

Santa Fe
49match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and culture and sights with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Fukuoka in July

31 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
301 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
24 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Santa Fe in July

31 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
60 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
FukuokaSanta Fe

Where the figures come from

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. Fukuoka: 1991-2020 normals, Fukuoka (1.9 km from centre). Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureFukuokaSanta Fe
Official languageJapanese-
CurrencyYen (JPY)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the regionAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+9UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110, fire 119911
Elevation8 m2,134 m
Main airportFukuoka Airport (FUK)5 km from centre46 non-stop destinationsSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureFukuokaSanta Fe
City population1,603,04387,505
People per km²4,715645
Museums within 10 km2310
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Fukuoka or Santa Fe 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. 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.