VacationSelector
The church of San Estanislao at Altos de Chavón, La Romana
La RomanaThe church of San Estanislao at Altos de Chavón
The Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock, Petra
PetraThe Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock

Photos: La Romana by Edgar El, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Petra by Yasir Gürbüz, Pexels License.

La Romana or Petra?

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

  • beaches
  • families
  • nightlife

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

Choose Petra for

  • culture and sights
  • nature and the outdoors
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Petra’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, Petra 5: La Romana leads by 79 points.
Food & drink. La Romana 38, Petra 22: La Romana leads by 16 points.
Culture & sights. La Romana 24, Petra 85: Petra leads by 61 points.
Nightlife. La Romana 30, Petra 5: La Romana leads by 25 points.
Nature & outdoors. La Romana 62, Petra 78: Petra leads by 16 points.
Day trips. La Romana 52, Petra 30: La Romana leads by 22 points.
Good for families. La Romana 56, Petra 25: La Romana leads by 31 points.
Getting around. La Romana 24, Petra 25: Petra leads by 1 points.
Shopping & style. La Romana 28, Petra 18: La Romana leads by 10 points.
Affordability. La Romana 50, Petra 45: La Romana leads by 5 points.
Live music & performing arts. La Romana 17, Petra 10: La Romana leads by 7 points.
Wellness & relaxation. La Romana 44, Petra 28: La Romana leads by 16 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: La Romana and Petra.

Your match

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

La Romana
Best match
42match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Petra
31match

Wins on culture and sights 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.

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

Petra in July

35 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
La RomanaPetra

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.

Petra's temperatures are measured 34 km from the centre, at Ma'An.

Petra's station stands 219 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

Petra 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. La Romana: 1993-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Punta Cana (65.4 km from centre). Petra: 1991-2020 normals, Ma'An (33.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLa RomanaPetra
Official languageSpanishArabic
CurrencyDominican Peso (DOP)Jordanian Dinar (JOD)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzBCFGJ230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-4UTC+3
Emergency number911911
Elevation10 m850 m
Main airportCasa De Campo International Airport (LRM)7 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsKing Hussein International Airport (AQJ)90 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days-

By the numbers

MeasureLa RomanaPetra
City population139,238-
People per km²512-
Museums within 10 km02
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow La Romana or Petra 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. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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.