VacationSelector
The steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi, New Orleans
New OrleansThe steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi
Palms on a white beach at Cap Cana, Punta Cana
Punta CanaPalms on a white beach at Cap Cana

Photos: New Orleans by Bernard Spragg, CC0; Punta Cana by Mary Mark Ockerbloom, CC0.

New Orleans or Punta Cana?

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 New Orleans for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

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

Choose Punta Cana for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Punta Cana’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. New Orleans 14, Punta Cana 94: Punta Cana leads by 80 points.
Food & drink. New Orleans 84, Punta Cana 30: New Orleans leads by 54 points.
Culture & sights. New Orleans 67, Punta Cana 8: New Orleans leads by 59 points.
Nightlife. New Orleans 85, Punta Cana 40: New Orleans leads by 45 points.
Nature & outdoors. New Orleans 42, Punta Cana 52: Punta Cana leads by 10 points.
Day trips. New Orleans 52, Punta Cana 35: New Orleans leads by 17 points.
Good for families. New Orleans 55, Punta Cana 68: Punta Cana leads by 13 points.
Getting around. New Orleans 55, Punta Cana 15: New Orleans leads by 40 points.
Shopping & style. New Orleans 54, Punta Cana 30: New Orleans leads by 24 points.
Affordability. New Orleans 40, Punta Cana 44: Punta Cana leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. New Orleans 80, Punta Cana 15: New Orleans leads by 65 points.
Wellness & relaxation. New Orleans 25, Punta Cana 52: Punta Cana leads by 27 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: New Orleans and Punta Cana.

Your match

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

New Orleans
Best match
54match

Wins on live music and the arts and culture and sights with your weighting.

Punta Cana
40match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

New Orleans in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
169 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Punta Cana in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
96 mmrain in the month
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
New OrleansPunta Cana

Where the figures come from

Punta Cana 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. New Orleans: 1991-2020 normals, New Orleans Airport (2.7 km from centre). Punta Cana: 1993-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Punta Cana (0.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureNew OrleansPunta Cana
Official language-Spanish
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Dominican Peso (DOP)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB110 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6, UTC-5 in summerUTC-4
Emergency number911911
Elevation-2 m28 m
Main airportLouis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)18 km from centre51 non-stop destinationsPunta Cana International Airport (PUJ)1 km from centre93 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureNew OrleansPunta Cana
City population383,997138,919
People per km²423292
Museums within 10 km160
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C7 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow New Orleans or Punta Cana 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.