VacationSelector
A yellow tram in a narrow street, Lisbon
LisbonA yellow tram in a narrow street
Palms on a white beach at Cap Cana, Punta Cana
Punta CanaPalms on a white beach at Cap Cana

Photos: Lisbon by Riccardo Toso, Pexels License; Punta Cana by Mary Mark Ockerbloom, CC0.

Lisbon or Punta Cana?

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 Lisbon for

  • culture and sights
  • getting around
  • day trips

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

Choose Punta Cana for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Punta Cana’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. Lisbon 50, Punta Cana 94: Punta Cana leads by 44 points.
Food & drink. Lisbon 75, Punta Cana 30: Lisbon leads by 45 points.
Culture & sights. Lisbon 78, Punta Cana 8: Lisbon leads by 70 points.
Nightlife. Lisbon 75, Punta Cana 40: Lisbon leads by 35 points.
Nature & outdoors. Lisbon 75, Punta Cana 52: Lisbon leads by 23 points.
Day trips. Lisbon 82, Punta Cana 35: Lisbon leads by 47 points.
Good for families. Lisbon 62, Punta Cana 68: Punta Cana leads by 6 points.
Getting around. Lisbon 66, Punta Cana 15: Lisbon leads by 51 points.
Shopping & style. Lisbon 60, Punta Cana 30: Lisbon leads by 30 points.
Affordability. Lisbon 55, Punta Cana 44: Lisbon leads by 11 points.
Live music & performing arts. Lisbon 60, Punta Cana 15: Lisbon leads by 45 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Lisbon 36, Punta Cana 52: Punta Cana leads by 16 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Lisbon and Punta Cana.

Your match

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

Lisbon
Best match
65match

Wins on culture and sights and getting around with your weighting.

Punta Cana
40match

Wins on beaches 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.

Lisbon in July

28 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
3 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
18 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Punta Cana in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
96 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
LisbonPunta Cana

Where the figures come from

Punta Cana 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. Lisbon: 1991-2020 normals, Lisboa / Geof (1.1 km from centre). Punta Cana: 1993-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Punta Cana (0.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLisbonPunta Cana
Official languagePortugueseSpanish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Dominican Peso (DOP)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzAB110 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-4
Emergency number112911
Elevation100 m28 m
Main airportLisbon Humberto Delgado Airport (LIS)7 km from centre156 non-stop destinationsPunta Cana International Airport (PUJ)1 km from centre93 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureLisbonPunta Cana
City population545,796138,919
People per km²5,453292
Museums within 10 km800
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km30
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 Lisbon or Punta Cana 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. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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.