VacationSelector
The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, Muscat
MuscatThe Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art

Photos: Muscat by Alli Khalil, CC BY 4.0, cropped; Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Muscat 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 Muscat for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • families

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

Choose Santa Fe for

  • getting around
  • shopping
  • food and drink

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. Muscat 72, Santa Fe 5: Muscat leads by 67 points.
Food & drink. Muscat 44, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Muscat 55, Santa Fe 66: Santa Fe leads by 11 points.
Nightlife. Muscat 14, Santa Fe 22: Santa Fe leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Muscat 70, Santa Fe 80: Santa Fe leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Muscat 62, Santa Fe 70: Santa Fe leads by 8 points.
Good for families. Muscat 52, Santa Fe 45: Muscat leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Muscat 20, Santa Fe 40: Santa Fe leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Muscat 42, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Muscat 45, Santa Fe 30: Muscat leads by 15 points.
Live music & performing arts. Muscat 40, Santa Fe 55: Santa Fe leads by 15 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Muscat and Santa Fe are level on 55.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Muscat
48match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Santa Fe
49match

Wins on getting around 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.

Muscat in July

33 °Cdaytime high
30 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
31 °Csea
13 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

020406080JFMAMJJASOND
MuscatSanta Fe

Where the figures come from

Muscat's sunshine is measured 32 km from the centre, at Seeb, International Airport.

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. Muscat: 1991-2020 normals, Qaboos Port (3.4 km from centre). Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMuscatSanta Fe
Official languageArabic-
CurrencyRial Omani (OMR)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCG240 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+4UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number968911
Elevation69 m2,134 m
Main airportMuscat International Airport (MCT)31 km from centre83 non-stop destinationsSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-13 days

By the numbers

MeasureMuscatSanta Fe
City population1,421,40987,505
People per km²406645
Museums within 10 km1010
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 Muscat 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). 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.

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.