VacationSelector
Inverness Castle above the River Ness, Inverness
InvernessInverness Castle above the River Ness
The cathedral of Santa Marta, Santa Marta
Santa MartaThe cathedral of Santa Marta

Photos: Inverness by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Santa Marta by Oliver H, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Inverness or Santa Marta?

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 Inverness for

  • day trips
  • live music and the arts
  • families

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

Choose Santa Marta for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Marta’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. Inverness 20, Santa Marta 70: Santa Marta leads by 50 points.
Food & drink. Inverness 36, Santa Marta 44: Santa Marta leads by 8 points.
Culture & sights. Inverness 27, Santa Marta 34: Santa Marta leads by 7 points.
Nightlife. Inverness 28, Santa Marta 50: Santa Marta leads by 22 points.
Nature & outdoors. Inverness and Santa Marta are level on 84.
Day trips. Inverness 56, Santa Marta 38: Inverness leads by 18 points.
Good for families. Inverness 55, Santa Marta 40: Inverness leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Inverness 48, Santa Marta 38: Inverness leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Inverness 30, Santa Marta 27: Inverness leads by 3 points.
Affordability. Inverness 38, Santa Marta 80: Santa Marta leads by 42 points.
Live music & performing arts. Inverness 33, Santa Marta 17: Inverness leads by 16 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Inverness and Santa Marta are level on 30.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Inverness and Santa Marta.

Your match

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

Inverness
40match

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

Santa Marta
Best match
46match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Inverness in July

19 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
69 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
14 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

Santa Marta in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
59 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
InvernessSanta Marta

Where the figures come from

Inverness 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.

Inverness's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Kinloss.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Inverness: 2005-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Inverness / Dalcross (11.9 km from centre). Santa Marta: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Marta / Simon Bolivar (11.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureInvernessSanta Marta
Official languageEnglishSpanish
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Colombian Peso (COP)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB110 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number112 or 999123
Elevation7 m8 m
Main airportInverness Airport (INV)12 km from centre15 non-stop destinationsSimón Bolívar International Airport (SMR)13 km from centre6 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days19 days

By the numbers

MeasureInvernessSanta Marta
City population47,380505,915
People per km²2,2891,723
Museums within 10 km33
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Inverness or Santa Marta somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national 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.