VacationSelector
The steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi, New Orleans
New OrleansThe steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art

Photos: New Orleans by Bernard Spragg, CC0; Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

New Orleans 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 New Orleans for

  • nightlife
  • live music and the arts
  • food and drink

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

Choose Santa Fe for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness
  • day trips

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. New Orleans 14, Santa Fe 5: New Orleans leads by 9 points.
Food & drink. New Orleans 84, Santa Fe 62: New Orleans leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. New Orleans 67, Santa Fe 66: New Orleans leads by 1 points.
Nightlife. New Orleans 85, Santa Fe 22: New Orleans leads by 63 points.
Nature & outdoors. New Orleans 42, Santa Fe 80: Santa Fe leads by 38 points.
Day trips. New Orleans 52, Santa Fe 70: Santa Fe leads by 18 points.
Good for families. New Orleans 55, Santa Fe 45: New Orleans leads by 10 points.
Getting around. New Orleans 55, Santa Fe 40: New Orleans leads by 15 points.
Shopping & style. New Orleans 54, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 8 points.
Affordability. New Orleans 40, Santa Fe 30: New Orleans leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. New Orleans 80, Santa Fe 55: New Orleans leads by 25 points.
Wellness & relaxation. New Orleans 25, Santa Fe 55: Santa Fe leads by 30 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

New Orleans
Best match
54match

Wins on nightlife and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Santa Fe
49match

Wins on nature and the outdoors 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

Santa Fe in July

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

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
New OrleansSanta 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. New Orleans: 1991-2020 normals, New Orleans Airport (2.7 km from centre). Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureNew OrleansSanta Fe
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6, UTC-5 in summerUTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation-2 m2,134 m
Main airportLouis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)18 km from centre51 non-stop destinationsSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureNew OrleansSanta Fe
City population383,99787,505
People per km²423645
Museums within 10 km1610
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C7 months-

Where else could you go?

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