VacationSelector
The church of San Estanislao at Altos de Chavón, La Romana
La RomanaThe church of San Estanislao at Altos de Chavón
The Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket, Phuket
PhuketThe Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket

Photos: La Romana by Edgar El, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Phuket by Mussi Katz, CC0.

La Romana or Phuket?

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

  • day trips
  • getting around

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

Choose Phuket for

  • nightlife
  • wellness
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Phuket’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, Phuket 90: Phuket leads by 6 points.
Food & drink. La Romana 38, Phuket 66: Phuket leads by 28 points.
Culture & sights. La Romana 24, Phuket 35: Phuket leads by 11 points.
Nightlife. La Romana 30, Phuket 72: Phuket leads by 42 points.
Nature & outdoors. La Romana 62, Phuket 80: Phuket leads by 18 points.
Day trips. La Romana 52, Phuket 45: La Romana leads by 7 points.
Good for families. La Romana 56, Phuket 65: Phuket leads by 9 points.
Getting around. La Romana 24, Phuket 22: La Romana leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. La Romana 28, Phuket 42: Phuket leads by 14 points.
Affordability. La Romana 50, Phuket 68: Phuket leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. La Romana 17, Phuket 20: Phuket leads by 3 points.
Wellness & relaxation. La Romana 44, Phuket 82: Phuket leads by 38 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: La Romana and Phuket.

Your match

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

La Romana
42match

Wins on day trips and getting around with your weighting.

Phuket
Best match
57match

Wins on nightlife and wellness 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
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Phuket in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
287 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
La RomanaPhuket

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.

Phuket's temperatures are measured 27 km from the centre, at Phuket Airport.

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). Phuket: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1961-1990) normals, Phuket Airport (26.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLa RomanaPhuket
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 m19 m
Main airportCasa De Campo International Airport (LRM)7 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsPhuket International Airport (HKT)27 km from centre85 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days-

By the numbers

MeasureLa RomanaPhuket
City population139,23877,610
People per km²5126,468
Museums within 10 km02
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 Phuket 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.