VacationSelector
Palacio Salvo under a blue sky, Montevideo
MontevideoPalacio Salvo under a blue sky
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art

Photos: Montevideo by Andrés Franchi Ugart…, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Montevideo or Santa Fe?

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 Montevideo for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • getting around

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

Choose Santa Fe for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • shopping
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Fe’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. Montevideo 55, Santa Fe 5: Montevideo leads by 50 points.
Food & drink. Montevideo 57, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 5 points.
Culture & sights. Montevideo 54, Santa Fe 66: Santa Fe leads by 12 points.
Nightlife. Montevideo 50, Santa Fe 22: Montevideo leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montevideo 34, Santa Fe 80: Santa Fe leads by 46 points.
Day trips. Montevideo 55, Santa Fe 70: Santa Fe leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Montevideo 55, Santa Fe 45: Montevideo leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Montevideo 54, Santa Fe 40: Montevideo leads by 14 points.
Shopping & style. Montevideo 36, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 26 points.
Affordability. Montevideo 42, Santa Fe 30: Montevideo leads by 12 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montevideo 57, Santa Fe 55: Montevideo leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montevideo 38, Santa Fe 55: Santa Fe leads by 17 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montevideo and Santa Fe.

Your match

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

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Montevideo
49match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Santa Fe
49match

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

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Montevideo in July

15 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
99 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
11 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Santa Fe in July

31 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
60 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
MontevideoSanta Fe

Where the figures come from

Santa Fe's station stands 199 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Santa Fe 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. Montevideo: 1991-2020 normals, Carrasco (19.2 km from centre). Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMontevideoSanta Fe
CurrencyPeso Uruguayo (UYU)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCFIL230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-3UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation41 m2,134 m
Main airportCarrasco General Cesáreo L. Berisso International Airport (MVD)17 km from centre15 non-stop destinationsSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontevideoSanta Fe
City population1,302,95487,505
People per km²1,785645
Museums within 10 km3610
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Montevideo or Santa Fe 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). 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. 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.

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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.