VacationSelector
The Ferris wheel on Santa Monica Pier, Los Angeles
Los AngelesThe Ferris wheel on Santa Monica Pier
The Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock, Petra
PetraThe Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock

Photos: Los Angeles by Domenico Convertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Petra by Yasir Gürbüz, Pexels License.

Los Angeles or Petra?

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
  • food and drink
  • nightlife

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

Choose Petra for

  • prices
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Petra’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, Petra 5: Los Angeles leads by 55 points.
Food & drink. Los Angeles 84, Petra 22: Los Angeles leads by 62 points.
Culture & sights. Los Angeles 66, Petra 85: Petra leads by 19 points.
Nightlife. Los Angeles 67, Petra 5: Los Angeles leads by 62 points.
Nature & outdoors. Los Angeles 80, Petra 78: Los Angeles leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Los Angeles 60, Petra 30: Los Angeles leads by 30 points.
Good for families. Los Angeles 84, Petra 25: Los Angeles leads by 59 points.
Getting around. Los Angeles and Petra are level on 25.
Shopping & style. Los Angeles 80, Petra 18: Los Angeles leads by 62 points.
Affordability. Los Angeles 24, Petra 45: Petra leads by 21 points.
Live music & performing arts. Los Angeles 83, Petra 10: Los Angeles leads by 73 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Los Angeles 60, Petra 28: Los Angeles leads by 32 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Los Angeles and Petra.

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 food and drink with your weighting.

Petra
31match

Wins on prices and culture and sights 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

Petra in July

35 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080JFMAMJJASOND
Los AngelesPetra

Where the figures come from

Petra's temperatures are measured 34 km from the centre, at Ma'An.

Petra's station stands 219 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

Petra 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. Los Angeles: 1991-2020 normals, Los Angeles Airport (18.5 km from centre). Petra: 1991-2020 normals, Ma'An (33.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLos AngelesPetra
Official language-Arabic
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Jordanian Dinar (JOD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzBCFGJ230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC+3
Emergency number911911
Elevation106 m850 m
Main airportLos Angeles International Airport (LAX)19 km from centre177 non-stop destinationsKing Hussein International Airport (AQJ)90 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days-

By the numbers

MeasureLos AngelesPetra
City population3,898,747-
People per km²2,994-
Museums within 10 km392
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Los Angeles or Petra 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. 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.