VacationSelector
Main Beach with its palms and lifeguard tower, Laguna Beach
Laguna BeachMain Beach with its palms and lifeguard tower
The Sanctuary of Truth by the sea, Pattaya
PattayaThe Sanctuary of Truth by the sea

Photos: Laguna Beach by Mark Stebnicki, Pexels License; Pattaya by Matrix, Pexels License.

Laguna Beach or Pattaya?

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 Laguna Beach for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Laguna Beach’s own page.

Choose Pattaya for

  • prices
  • nightlife
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Pattaya’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. Laguna Beach 72, Pattaya 66: Laguna Beach leads by 6 points.
Food & drink. Laguna Beach 40, Pattaya 58: Pattaya leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Laguna Beach 27, Pattaya 30: Pattaya leads by 3 points.
Nightlife. Laguna Beach 18, Pattaya 76: Pattaya leads by 58 points.
Nature & outdoors. Laguna Beach 73, Pattaya 40: Laguna Beach leads by 33 points.
Day trips. Laguna Beach 72, Pattaya 52: Laguna Beach leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Laguna Beach 68, Pattaya 55: Laguna Beach leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Laguna Beach 33, Pattaya 36: Pattaya leads by 3 points.
Shopping & style. Laguna Beach 46, Pattaya 42: Laguna Beach leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Laguna Beach 12, Pattaya 84: Pattaya leads by 72 points.
Live music & performing arts. Laguna Beach 40, Pattaya 30: Laguna Beach leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Laguna Beach 47, Pattaya 58: Pattaya leads by 11 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Laguna Beach and Pattaya.

Your match

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

Laguna Beach
46match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and day trips with your weighting.

Pattaya
Best match
52match

Wins on prices 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.

Laguna Beach in July

28 °Cdaytime high
17 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Pattaya in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
102 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Laguna BeachPattaya

Where the figures come from

Pattaya's temperatures are measured 31 km from the centre, at Sattahip.

Pattaya 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.

Pattaya's sunshine is measured 86 km from the centre, at Bangna Agromet / Ban Khlong Samrong.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Laguna Beach: 1981-2010 normals, Irvine (15.5 km from centre). Pattaya: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1961-1990, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Sattahip (31.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLaguna BeachPattaya
Official language-Thai
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Baht (THB)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC+7
Emergency number911Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation6 m35 m
Main airportJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)18 km from centre53 non-stop destinationsSuvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)83 km from centre150 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days-

By the numbers

MeasureLaguna BeachPattaya
City population23,032119,532
People per km²907-
Museums within 10 km20
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Laguna Beach or Pattaya 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). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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. 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.