VacationSelector

Macau or Sao Paulo?

Two destinations compared in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

The Grand Lisboa above the Macau skyline, Macau
Macau

Photo: tian Jin, Pexels License

São Paulo Cathedral, Sao Paulo
Sao Paulo

Photo: Webysther Nunes, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped

Your match

Macau
46
match

Wins on getting around and wellness with your weighting.

Sao Paulo
✓ Best match
58
match

Wins on nightlife and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

Scoreboard

Our verdict on each category, scored 0 to 100 against fixed benchmark cities.

MacauSao Paulo
Beaches & swimming. Sao Paulo leads by 18 points.18
Food & drink. Sao Paulo leads by 7 points.7
Culture & sights. Macau leads by 2 points.2
Nightlife. Sao Paulo leads by 46 points.46
Nature & outdoors. Sao Paulo leads by 43 points.43
Day trips. Macau leads by 5 points.5
Good for families. Sao Paulo leads by 4 points.4
Getting around. Macau leads by 16 points.16
Shopping & style. Sao Paulo leads by 12 points.12
Affordability. Sao Paulo leads by 18 points.18
Live music & performing arts. Sao Paulo leads by 40 points.40
Wellness & relaxation. Macau leads by 15 points.15
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Macau and Sao Paulo.

When should you go?

Pick the month you can travel and see both cities side by side. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Climate figures for July
JulyMacauSao Paulo
Daytime high32 °C23 °C
Night-time low26 °C13 °C
Rainfall in the month281 mm53 mm
Sunshine7 hours a day6 hours a day
Sea temperature29 °CNo sea
Daylight13 hours a day11 hours a day

The whole year

Each row is shaded against that destination’s own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that figure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Macau
19
19
22
25
29
31
32
32
31
29
25
20
Sao Paulo
28
29
28
27
24
23
23
25
25
27
27
28
Sea temperature, °C
Macau
19
19
20
23
26
28
29
29
28
27
24
21
Sao Paulo
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Macau
34
42
78
160
285
369
281
338
233
71
38
32
Sao Paulo
297
259
206
89
64
55
53
26
82
128
146
234
Daylight, hours per day
Macau
11
11
12
13
13
14
13
13
12
12
11
11
Sao Paulo
13
13
12
12
11
11
11
11
12
13
13
14
Sunshine, hours per day
Macau
4
3
3
3
4
5
7
6
6
6
5
5
Sao Paulo
4
6
6
5
5
5
6
6
5
6
5
5

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Macau: 1991-2020 normals, Taipa (3.9 km from centre). Sao Paulo: 1991-2020 normals, Sao Paulo (5.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromMacauSao Paulo
BeijingPEK, PKX
3 h 0 m
€181-203
1 stop
MFM · 7 km
21 h 20 m
€1,139-1567
2 stops
GRU · 21 km
Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY
14 h 25 m
no fares
HKG · 41 km
12 h 20 m
no fares
GRU · 21 km
MadridMAD
13 h 0 m
no fares
HKG · 41 km
10 h 30 m
€739-741
GRU · 21 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
15 h 55 m
no fares
HKG · 41 km
9 h 40 m
€576-611
GRU · 21 km
Mexico CityMEX, NLU, TLC
17 h 15 m
no fares
SZX · 57 km
9 h 25 m
no fares
GRU · 21 km
JohannesburgJNB, HLA
13 h 15 m
no fares
HKG · 41 km
9 h 25 m
€445-559
GRU · 21 km

The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-10 to 2026-12, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.

Before you go

MeasureMacauSao Paulo
Official languagePortuguese, Cantonese, Standard ChinesePortuguese
CurrencyPataca (MOP)Brazilian Real (BRL)
SocketsFGM220 V, 50 HzCN60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+8UTC-3
Emergency number999Police 190, ambulance 192, fire 193
Elevation22 m760 m
Main airportMacau International Airport (MFM)7 km from centre41 non-stop destinationsSão Paulo/Guarulhos–Governor André Franco Montoro International Airport (GRU)21 km from centre104 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-15 days

By the numbers

MeasureMacauSao Paulo
City population682,10011,451,999
People per km²5,9167,519
Museums within 10 km2890
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C8 months-

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). 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. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate and flight figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-27. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.