VacationSelector
The Johannesburg skyline and the Hillbrow Tower, Johannesburg
JohannesburgThe Johannesburg skyline and the Hillbrow Tower
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art

Photos: Johannesburg by K, Pexels License; Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Johannesburg 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 Johannesburg for

  • prices
  • nightlife

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

Choose Santa Fe for

  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors
  • getting around

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. Johannesburg and Santa Fe are level on 5.
Food & drink. Johannesburg 58, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Johannesburg 56, Santa Fe 66: Santa Fe leads by 10 points.
Nightlife. Johannesburg 62, Santa Fe 22: Johannesburg leads by 40 points.
Nature & outdoors. Johannesburg 55, Santa Fe 80: Santa Fe leads by 25 points.
Day trips. Johannesburg 52, Santa Fe 70: Santa Fe leads by 18 points.
Good for families. Johannesburg 42, Santa Fe 45: Santa Fe leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Johannesburg 18, Santa Fe 40: Santa Fe leads by 22 points.
Shopping & style. Johannesburg 58, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Johannesburg 72, Santa Fe 30: Johannesburg leads by 42 points.
Live music & performing arts. Johannesburg and Santa Fe are level on 55.
Wellness & relaxation. Johannesburg 28, Santa Fe 55: Santa Fe leads by 27 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Johannesburg and Santa Fe.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Johannesburg
47match

Wins on prices and nightlife with your weighting.

Santa Fe
49match

Wins on wellness and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Johannesburg in July

19 °Cdaytime high
4 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
11 hdaylight a day

Santa Fe in July

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

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
JohannesburgSanta 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. Johannesburg: 2005-2019 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Johannesburg B / Roosevelt Park (7.3 km from centre). Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureJohannesburgSanta Fe
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign Language-
CurrencyRand (ZAR)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation1,753 m2,134 m
Main airportO.R. Tambo International Airport (JNB)22 km from centre84 non-stop destinationsSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureJohannesburgSanta Fe
City population4,803,26287,505
People per km²2,922645
Museums within 10 km1410
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Johannesburg 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. 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.