VacationSelector
The church of San Estanislao at Altos de Chavón, La Romana
La RomanaThe church of San Estanislao at Altos de Chavón
The Sanctuary of Truth by the sea, Pattaya
PattayaThe Sanctuary of Truth by the sea

Photos: La Romana by Edgar El, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Pattaya by Matrix, Pexels License.

La Romana or Pattaya?

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 La Romana for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches
  • families

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

Choose Pattaya for

  • nightlife
  • prices
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Pattaya’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. La Romana 84, Pattaya 66: La Romana leads by 18 points.
Food & drink. La Romana 38, Pattaya 58: Pattaya leads by 20 points.
Culture & sights. La Romana 24, Pattaya 30: Pattaya leads by 6 points.
Nightlife. La Romana 30, Pattaya 76: Pattaya leads by 46 points.
Nature & outdoors. La Romana 62, Pattaya 40: La Romana leads by 22 points.
Day trips. La Romana and Pattaya are level on 52.
Good for families. La Romana 56, Pattaya 55: La Romana leads by 1 points.
Getting around. La Romana 24, Pattaya 36: Pattaya leads by 12 points.
Shopping & style. La Romana 28, Pattaya 42: Pattaya leads by 14 points.
Affordability. La Romana 50, Pattaya 84: Pattaya leads by 34 points.
Live music & performing arts. La Romana 17, Pattaya 30: Pattaya leads by 13 points.
Wellness & relaxation. La Romana 44, Pattaya 58: Pattaya leads by 14 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: La Romana and Pattaya.

Your match

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

La Romana
42match

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

Pattaya
Best match
52match

Wins on nightlife 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.

La Romana in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
87 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Pattaya in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
102 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
La RomanaPattaya

Where the figures come from

La Romana's temperatures are measured 65 km from the centre, at Punta Cana.

La Romana 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.

Pattaya's temperatures are measured 31 km from the centre, at Sattahip.

Pattaya 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.

Pattaya's sunshine is measured 86 km from the centre, at Bangna Agromet / Ban Khlong Samrong.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. La Romana: 1993-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Punta Cana (65.4 km from centre). Pattaya: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1961-1990, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Sattahip (31.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLa RomanaPattaya
Official languageSpanishThai
CurrencyDominican Peso (DOP)Baht (THB)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-4UTC+7
Emergency number911Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation10 m35 m
Main airportCasa De Campo International Airport (LRM)7 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsSuvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)83 km from centre150 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days-

By the numbers

MeasureLa RomanaPattaya
City population139,238119,532
People per km²512-
Museums within 10 km00
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow La Romana or Pattaya 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). 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.