VacationSelector
The church of San Estanislao at Altos de Chavón, La Romana
La RomanaThe church of San Estanislao at Altos de Chavón
The County Courthouse and its garden, Santa Barbara
Santa BarbaraThe County Courthouse and its garden

Photos: La Romana by Edgar El, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Santa Barbara by Warren LeMay, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

La Romana or Santa Barbara?

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

  • prices
  • beaches

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

Choose Santa Barbara for

  • live music and the arts
  • food and drink
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Barbara’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, Santa Barbara 60: La Romana leads by 24 points.
Food & drink. La Romana 38, Santa Barbara 62: Santa Barbara leads by 24 points.
Culture & sights. La Romana 24, Santa Barbara 48: Santa Barbara leads by 24 points.
Nightlife. La Romana 30, Santa Barbara 34: Santa Barbara leads by 4 points.
Nature & outdoors. La Romana 62, Santa Barbara 80: Santa Barbara leads by 18 points.
Day trips. La Romana 52, Santa Barbara 55: Santa Barbara leads by 3 points.
Good for families. La Romana 56, Santa Barbara 64: Santa Barbara leads by 8 points.
Getting around. La Romana 24, Santa Barbara 46: Santa Barbara leads by 22 points.
Shopping & style. La Romana 28, Santa Barbara 45: Santa Barbara leads by 17 points.
Affordability. La Romana 50, Santa Barbara 15: La Romana leads by 35 points.
Live music & performing arts. La Romana 17, Santa Barbara 50: Santa Barbara leads by 33 points.
Wellness & relaxation. La Romana 44, Santa Barbara 50: Santa Barbara leads by 6 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: La Romana and Santa Barbara.

Your match

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

La Romana
42match

Wins on prices and beaches with your weighting.

Santa Barbara
Best match
51match

Wins on live music and the arts and food and drink 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

Santa Barbara in July

24 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
18 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
La RomanaSanta Barbara

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). Santa Barbara: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Barbara / La Patera (11.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLa RomanaSanta Barbara
Official languageSpanish-
CurrencyDominican Peso (DOP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-4UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation10 m15 m
Main airportCasa De Campo International Airport (LRM)7 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsSanta Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA)12 km from centre13 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureLa RomanaSanta Barbara
City population139,23888,665
People per km²512816
Museums within 10 km010
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow La Romana or Santa Barbara 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. 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.