VacationSelector
Fishing boats in the harbour, La Spezia
La SpeziaFishing boats in the harbour
The Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket, Phuket
PhuketThe Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket

Photos: La Spezia by Irina Balashova, Pexels License; Phuket by Mussi Katz, CC0.

La Spezia 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 Spezia for

  • getting around
  • day trips
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Phuket for

  • wellness
  • nightlife
  • beaches

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 Spezia 60, Phuket 90: Phuket leads by 30 points.
Food & drink. La Spezia 58, Phuket 66: Phuket leads by 8 points.
Culture & sights. La Spezia 40, Phuket 35: La Spezia leads by 5 points.
Nightlife. La Spezia 28, Phuket 72: Phuket leads by 44 points.
Nature & outdoors. La Spezia 79, Phuket 80: Phuket leads by 1 points.
Day trips. La Spezia 87, Phuket 45: La Spezia leads by 42 points.
Good for families. La Spezia 48, Phuket 65: Phuket leads by 17 points.
Getting around. La Spezia 70, Phuket 22: La Spezia leads by 48 points.
Shopping & style. La Spezia 35, Phuket 42: Phuket leads by 7 points.
Affordability. La Spezia 50, Phuket 68: Phuket leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. La Spezia 28, Phuket 20: La Spezia leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. La Spezia 32, Phuket 82: Phuket leads by 50 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: La Spezia and Phuket.

Your match

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

La Spezia
51match

Wins on getting around and day trips with your weighting.

Phuket
Best match
57match

Wins on wellness 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 Spezia in July

30 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
20 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
24 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Phuket in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
287 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
La SpeziaPhuket

Where the figures come from

La Spezia's temperatures are measured 65 km from the centre, at Pisa / S. Giusto.

La Spezia 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 Spezia: 1991-2020 normals, Pisa / S. Giusto (64.8 km from centre). Phuket: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1961-1990) normals, Phuket Airport (26.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLa SpeziaPhuket
Official languageItalianThai
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Baht (THB)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+7
Emergency number112Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation3 m19 m
Main airportPisa International Airport (PSA)65 km from centre82 non-stop destinationsPhuket International Airport (HKT)27 km from centre85 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days-

By the numbers

MeasureLa SpeziaPhuket
City population92,11977,610
People per km²1,7926,468
Museums within 10 km122
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow La Spezia 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). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.