VacationSelector
The fountain on Plaza Mayor, Lima
LimaThe fountain on Plaza Mayor
A cobbled street of painted houses in the old town, San Miguel de Allende
San Miguel de AllendeA cobbled street of painted houses in the old town

Photos: Lima by James C., CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; San Miguel de Allende by Russ Bowling, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Lima or San Miguel de Allende?

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 Lima for

  • beaches
  • food and drink
  • nightlife

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

Choose San Miguel de Allende for

  • day trips
  • wellness
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on San Miguel de Allende’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. Lima 42, San Miguel de Allende 4: Lima leads by 38 points.
Food & drink. Lima 88, San Miguel de Allende 62: Lima leads by 26 points.
Culture & sights. Lima 66, San Miguel de Allende 62: Lima leads by 4 points.
Nightlife. Lima 62, San Miguel de Allende 38: Lima leads by 24 points.
Nature & outdoors. Lima 45, San Miguel de Allende 40: Lima leads by 5 points.
Day trips. Lima 34, San Miguel de Allende 77: San Miguel de Allende leads by 43 points.
Good for families. Lima 42, San Miguel de Allende 32: Lima leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Lima 35, San Miguel de Allende 48: San Miguel de Allende leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Lima 52, San Miguel de Allende 55: San Miguel de Allende leads by 3 points.
Affordability. Lima 70, San Miguel de Allende 50: Lima leads by 20 points.
Live music & performing arts. Lima 53, San Miguel de Allende 40: Lima leads by 13 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Lima 25, San Miguel de Allende 66: San Miguel de Allende leads by 41 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Lima and San Miguel de Allende.

Your match

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

Lima
Best match
51match

Wins on beaches and food and drink with your weighting.

San Miguel de Allende
48match

Wins on day trips and wellness with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Lima in July

19 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
1 hsunshine a day
18 °Csea
12 hdaylight a day

San Miguel de Allende in July

29 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
132 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
LimaSan Miguel de Allende

Where the figures come from

San Miguel de Allende's temperatures are measured 54 km from the centre, at Guanajuato, Gto..

San Miguel de Allende 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. Lima: 1991-2020 normals, Lima-Callao / Aerop. Internacional Jorgechavez (10.9 km from centre). San Miguel de Allende: 1991-2020 normals, Guanajuato, Gto. (53.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLimaSan Miguel de Allende
Official languageSpanish, Aymara, QuechuaSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencySol (PEN)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-6
Emergency number111 or 911911
Elevation154 m1,900 m
Main airportJorge Chávez International Airport (LIM)9 km from centre61 non-stop destinationsGuanajuato International Airport (BJX)77 km from centre22 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureLimaSan Miguel de Allende
City population9,943,80069,811
People per km²3,721-
Museums within 10 km472
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km22
Swim season, months above 21 °C2 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Lima or San Miguel de Allende 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.