VacationSelector
A lifeguard stand on South Beach, Miami
MiamiA lifeguard stand on South Beach
The Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock, Petra
PetraThe Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock

Photos: Miami by Radomianin, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Petra by Yasir Gürbüz, Pexels License.

Miami 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 Miami for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • shopping

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

Choose Petra for

  • culture and sights
  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors

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. Miami 90, Petra 5: Miami leads by 85 points.
Food & drink. Miami 72, Petra 22: Miami leads by 50 points.
Culture & sights. Miami 57, Petra 85: Petra leads by 28 points.
Nightlife. Miami 82, Petra 5: Miami leads by 77 points.
Nature & outdoors. Miami 64, Petra 78: Petra leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Miami 42, Petra 30: Miami leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Miami 64, Petra 25: Miami leads by 39 points.
Getting around. Miami 35, Petra 25: Miami leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Miami 71, Petra 18: Miami leads by 53 points.
Affordability. Miami 27, Petra 45: Petra leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. Miami 55, Petra 10: Miami leads by 45 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Miami 44, Petra 28: Miami leads by 16 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Miami and Petra.

Your match

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

Miami
Best match
59match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Petra
31match

Wins on culture and sights and prices with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Miami in July

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

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
MiamiPetra

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. Miami: 1991-2020 normals, Miami International Airport (10 km from centre). Petra: 1991-2020 normals, Ma'An (33.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMiamiPetra
Official language-Arabic
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Jordanian Dinar (JOD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzBCFGJ230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+3
Emergency number911911
Elevation2 m850 m
Main airportMiami International Airport (MIA)7 km from centre198 non-stop destinationsKing Hussein International Airport (AQJ)90 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days-

By the numbers

MeasureMiamiPetra
City population442,241-
People per km²3,046-
Museums within 10 km172
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
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 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.