VacationSelector
The church of San Estanislao at Altos de Chavón, La Romana
La RomanaThe church of San Estanislao at Altos de Chavón
São Paulo Cathedral, Sao Paulo
Sao PauloSão Paulo Cathedral

Photos: La Romana by Edgar El, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Sao Paulo by Webysther Nunes, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

La Romana or Sao Paulo?

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
  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Sao Paulo for

  • live music and the arts
  • nightlife
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Sao Paulo’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, Sao Paulo 42: La Romana leads by 42 points.
Food & drink. La Romana 38, Sao Paulo 84: Sao Paulo leads by 46 points.
Culture & sights. La Romana 24, Sao Paulo 60: Sao Paulo leads by 36 points.
Nightlife. La Romana 30, Sao Paulo 86: Sao Paulo leads by 56 points.
Nature & outdoors. La Romana 62, Sao Paulo 48: La Romana leads by 14 points.
Day trips. La Romana 52, Sao Paulo 47: La Romana leads by 5 points.
Good for families. La Romana 56, Sao Paulo 52: La Romana leads by 4 points.
Getting around. La Romana 24, Sao Paulo 44: Sao Paulo leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. La Romana 28, Sao Paulo 70: Sao Paulo leads by 42 points.
Affordability. La Romana 50, Sao Paulo 62: Sao Paulo leads by 12 points.
Live music & performing arts. La Romana 17, Sao Paulo 76: Sao Paulo leads by 59 points.
Wellness & relaxation. La Romana 44, Sao Paulo 25: La Romana leads by 19 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: La Romana and Sao Paulo.

Your match

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

La Romana
42match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

Sao Paulo
Best match
58match

Wins on live music and the arts and nightlife 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

Sao Paulo in July

23 °Cdaytime high
13 °Cnight-time low
53 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
No seasea
11 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
La RomanaSao Paulo

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). Sao Paulo: 1991-2020 normals, Sao Paulo (5.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLa RomanaSao Paulo
Official languageSpanishPortuguese
CurrencyDominican Peso (DOP)Brazilian Real (BRL)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzCN60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-4UTC-3
Emergency number911Police 190, ambulance 192, fire 193
Elevation10 m760 m
Main airportCasa De Campo International Airport (LRM)7 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsSão Paulo/Guarulhos–Governor André Franco Montoro International Airport (GRU)21 km from centre104 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureLa RomanaSao Paulo
City population139,23811,451,999
People per km²5127,519
Museums within 10 km090
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Sao Paulo 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.