VacationSelector
Bougainvillea and the dome of Agia Napa Cathedral, Limassol
LimassolBougainvillea and the dome of Agia Napa Cathedral
São Paulo Cathedral, Sao Paulo
Sao PauloSão Paulo Cathedral

Photos: Limassol by Julian Lupyan, CC0; Sao Paulo by Webysther Nunes, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Limassol 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 Limassol for

  • beaches
  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Sao Paulo for

  • live music and the arts
  • nightlife
  • shopping

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. Limassol 77, Sao Paulo 42: Limassol leads by 35 points.
Food & drink. Limassol 58, Sao Paulo 84: Sao Paulo leads by 26 points.
Culture & sights. Limassol 38, Sao Paulo 60: Sao Paulo leads by 22 points.
Nightlife. Limassol 50, Sao Paulo 86: Sao Paulo leads by 36 points.
Nature & outdoors. Limassol 65, Sao Paulo 48: Limassol leads by 17 points.
Day trips. Limassol 76, Sao Paulo 47: Limassol leads by 29 points.
Good for families. Limassol 63, Sao Paulo 52: Limassol leads by 11 points.
Getting around. Limassol 38, Sao Paulo 44: Sao Paulo leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. Limassol 42, Sao Paulo 70: Sao Paulo leads by 28 points.
Affordability. Limassol 44, Sao Paulo 62: Sao Paulo leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. Limassol 32, Sao Paulo 76: Sao Paulo leads by 44 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Limassol 42, Sao Paulo 25: Limassol leads by 17 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Limassol and Sao Paulo.

Your match

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

Limassol
52match

Wins on beaches and day trips 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.

Limassol in July

31 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
13 hsunshine a day
26 °Csea
14 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
LimassolSao Paulo

Where the figures come from

Limassol 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.

Limassol's sunshine is measured 59 km from the centre, at Larnaca Airport.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Limassol: 1998-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Akrotiri (11.6 km from centre). Sao Paulo: 1991-2020 normals, Sao Paulo (5.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLimassolSao Paulo
Official languageTurkish, Greek, Modern GreekPortuguese
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Brazilian Real (BRL)
SocketsG240 V, 50 HzCN60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC-3
Emergency number112Police 190, ambulance 192, fire 193
Elevation10 m760 m
Main airportLarnaca International Airport (LCA)58 km from centre112 non-stop destinationsSão Paulo/Guarulhos–Governor André Franco Montoro International Airport (GRU)21 km from centre104 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year17 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureLimassolSao Paulo
City population107,97011,451,999
People per km²2,4057,519
Museums within 10 km290
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km30
Swim season, months above 21 °C6 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Limassol or Sao Paulo somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national 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. 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.