VacationSelector
A purple lifeguard tower on South Beach, Miami Beach
Miami BeachA purple lifeguard tower on South Beach
The terrace on Cerro Santa Lucía, Santiago
SantiagoThe terrace on Cerro Santa Lucía

Photos: Miami Beach by Radomianin, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Santiago by Rjcastillo, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Miami Beach or Santiago?

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 Miami Beach for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • wellness

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

Choose Santiago for

  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Santiago’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. Miami Beach 92, Santiago 12: Miami Beach leads by 80 points.
Food & drink. Miami Beach 62, Santiago 60: Miami Beach leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Miami Beach and Santiago are level on 52.
Nightlife. Miami Beach 80, Santiago 60: Miami Beach leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Miami Beach 52, Santiago 83: Santiago leads by 31 points.
Day trips. Miami Beach 55, Santiago 70: Santiago leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Miami Beach 60, Santiago 57: Miami Beach leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Miami Beach 58, Santiago 68: Santiago leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Miami Beach 55, Santiago 52: Miami Beach leads by 3 points.
Affordability. Miami Beach 20, Santiago 58: Santiago leads by 38 points.
Live music & performing arts. Miami Beach and Santiago are level on 55.
Wellness & relaxation. Miami Beach 48, Santiago 37: Miami Beach leads by 11 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Miami Beach and Santiago.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Miami Beach
57match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Santiago
55match

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

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Miami Beach in July

33 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
186 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Santiago in July

14 °Cdaytime high
4 °Cnight-time low
52 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
No seasea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Miami BeachSantiago

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Miami Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Miami International Airport (18.8 km from centre). Santiago: 1991-2020 normals, Santiago Q. Normal (3.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMiami BeachSantiago
Official language-Spanish
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Chilean Peso (CLP)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCL220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-4, UTC-3 in summer
Emergency number911Police 133/134, ambulance 131, fire 132
Elevation1 m575 m
Main airportMiami International Airport (MIA)16 km from centre198 non-stop destinationsComodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport (SCL)14 km from centre67 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureMiami BeachSantiago
City population82,8906,257,516
People per km²2,1097,468
Museums within 10 km1454
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Miami Beach or Santiago 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.