VacationSelector
The church of San Estanislao at Altos de Chavón, La Romana
La RomanaThe church of San Estanislao at Altos de Chavón
A madrasa and its minarets on the Registan, Samarkand
SamarkandA madrasa and its minarets on the Registan

Photos: La Romana by Edgar El, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Samarkand by Yaşar Başkurt, Pexels License.

La Romana or Samarkand?

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
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Samarkand for

  • culture and sights
  • getting around
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Samarkand’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, Samarkand 4: La Romana leads by 80 points.
Food & drink. La Romana 38, Samarkand 54: Samarkand leads by 16 points.
Culture & sights. La Romana 24, Samarkand 84: Samarkand leads by 60 points.
Nightlife. La Romana 30, Samarkand 14: La Romana leads by 16 points.
Nature & outdoors. La Romana 62, Samarkand 40: La Romana leads by 22 points.
Day trips. La Romana 52, Samarkand 72: Samarkand leads by 20 points.
Good for families. La Romana 56, Samarkand 30: La Romana leads by 26 points.
Getting around. La Romana 24, Samarkand 58: Samarkand leads by 34 points.
Shopping & style. La Romana 28, Samarkand 42: Samarkand leads by 14 points.
Affordability. La Romana 50, Samarkand 80: Samarkand leads by 30 points.
Live music & performing arts. La Romana 17, Samarkand 24: Samarkand leads by 7 points.
Wellness & relaxation. La Romana 44, Samarkand 32: La Romana leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: La Romana and Samarkand.

Your match

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

La Romana
42match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Samarkand
Best match
45match

Wins on culture and sights and getting around 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

Samarkand in July

34 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
2 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
La RomanaSamarkand

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.

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). Samarkand: 1991-2020 normals, Samarkand (10 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLa RomanaSamarkand
Official languageSpanishUzbek
CurrencyDominican Peso (DOP)Uzbekistan Sum (UZS)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzCFI220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-4UTC+5
Emergency number911112
Elevation10 m702 m
Main airportCasa De Campo International Airport (LRM)7 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsSamarkand International Airport (SKD)5 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days-

By the numbers

MeasureLa RomanaSamarkand
City population139,238546,303
People per km²5125,058
Museums within 10 km011
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 Samarkand 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.