VacationSelector
The Ferris wheel on Santa Monica Pier, Los Angeles
Los AngelesThe Ferris wheel on Santa Monica Pier
The Sanctuary of Truth by the sea, Pattaya
PattayaThe Sanctuary of Truth by the sea

Photos: Los Angeles by Domenico Convertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Pattaya by Matrix, Pexels License.

Los Angeles 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 Los Angeles for

  • live music and the arts
  • nature and the outdoors
  • shopping

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

Choose Pattaya for

  • prices
  • getting around
  • nightlife

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. Los Angeles 60, Pattaya 66: Pattaya leads by 6 points.
Food & drink. Los Angeles 84, Pattaya 58: Los Angeles leads by 26 points.
Culture & sights. Los Angeles 66, Pattaya 30: Los Angeles leads by 36 points.
Nightlife. Los Angeles 67, Pattaya 76: Pattaya leads by 9 points.
Nature & outdoors. Los Angeles 80, Pattaya 40: Los Angeles leads by 40 points.
Day trips. Los Angeles 60, Pattaya 52: Los Angeles leads by 8 points.
Good for families. Los Angeles 84, Pattaya 55: Los Angeles leads by 29 points.
Getting around. Los Angeles 25, Pattaya 36: Pattaya leads by 11 points.
Shopping & style. Los Angeles 80, Pattaya 42: Los Angeles leads by 38 points.
Affordability. Los Angeles 24, Pattaya 84: Pattaya leads by 60 points.
Live music & performing arts. Los Angeles 83, Pattaya 30: Los Angeles leads by 53 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Los Angeles 60, Pattaya 58: Los Angeles leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Los Angeles and Pattaya.

Your match

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

Los Angeles
Best match
64match

Wins on live music and the arts and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Pattaya
52match

Wins on prices and getting around with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Los Angeles in July

24 °Cdaytime high
18 °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
Los AngelesPattaya

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. Los Angeles: 1991-2020 normals, Los Angeles Airport (18.5 km from centre). Pattaya: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1961-1990, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Sattahip (31.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLos AngelesPattaya
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
Elevation106 m35 m
Main airportLos Angeles International Airport (LAX)19 km from centre177 non-stop destinationsSuvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)83 km from centre150 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days-

By the numbers

MeasureLos AngelesPattaya
City population3,898,747119,532
People per km²2,994-
Museums within 10 km390
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 Los Angeles 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.