VacationSelector
Place d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica, Montreal
MontrealPlace d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art

Photos: Montreal by Arild Vågen, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Montreal 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 Montreal for

  • nightlife
  • getting around
  • families

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

Choose Santa Fe for

  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors
  • culture and sights

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. Montreal 25, Santa Fe 5: Montreal leads by 20 points.
Food & drink. Montreal 78, Santa Fe 62: Montreal leads by 16 points.
Culture & sights. Montreal 60, Santa Fe 66: Santa Fe leads by 6 points.
Nightlife. Montreal 75, Santa Fe 22: Montreal leads by 53 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montreal 66, Santa Fe 80: Santa Fe leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Montreal 55, Santa Fe 70: Santa Fe leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Montreal 68, Santa Fe 45: Montreal leads by 23 points.
Getting around. Montreal 72, Santa Fe 40: Montreal leads by 32 points.
Shopping & style. Montreal 60, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Montreal 45, Santa Fe 30: Montreal leads by 15 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montreal 76, Santa Fe 55: Montreal leads by 21 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montreal 57, Santa Fe 55: Montreal leads by 2 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Montreal
Best match
61match

Wins on nightlife and getting around with your weighting.

Santa Fe
49match

Wins on day trips 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.

Montreal in July

27 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
98 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
15 hdaylight a day

Santa Fe in July

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

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
MontrealSanta 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. Montreal: 1991-2020 normals, Montreal McTavish (3.2 km from centre). Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMontrealSanta Fe
Official languageFrench, English-
CurrencyCanadian Dollar (CAD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation31 m2,134 m
Main airportMontreal / Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL)16 km from centre166 non-stop destinationsSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontrealSanta Fe
City population1,895,21187,505
People per km²3,806645
Museums within 10 km3710
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Montreal 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. 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.