VacationSelector
Santo Domingo church behind agaves, Oaxaca
OaxacaSanto Domingo church behind agaves
The Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket, Phuket
PhuketThe Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket

Photos: Oaxaca by Öskr Rck, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Phuket by Mussi Katz, CC0.

Oaxaca or Phuket?

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 Oaxaca for

  • culture and sights
  • getting around
  • day trips

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

Choose Phuket for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Phuket’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. Oaxaca 5, Phuket 90: Phuket leads by 85 points.
Food & drink. Oaxaca 84, Phuket 66: Oaxaca leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Oaxaca 74, Phuket 35: Oaxaca leads by 39 points.
Nightlife. Oaxaca 40, Phuket 72: Phuket leads by 32 points.
Nature & outdoors. Oaxaca 62, Phuket 80: Phuket leads by 18 points.
Day trips. Oaxaca 65, Phuket 45: Oaxaca leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Oaxaca 40, Phuket 65: Phuket leads by 25 points.
Getting around. Oaxaca 55, Phuket 22: Oaxaca leads by 33 points.
Shopping & style. Oaxaca 62, Phuket 42: Oaxaca leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Oaxaca 77, Phuket 68: Oaxaca leads by 9 points.
Live music & performing arts. Oaxaca 38, Phuket 20: Oaxaca leads by 18 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Oaxaca 50, Phuket 82: Phuket leads by 32 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Oaxaca and Phuket.

Your match

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

Oaxaca
54match

Wins on culture and sights and getting around with your weighting.

Phuket
Best match
57match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Oaxaca in July

28 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
80 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
13 hdaylight a day

Phuket in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
287 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
OaxacaPhuket

Where the figures come from

Phuket's temperatures are measured 27 km from the centre, at Phuket Airport.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Oaxaca: 1961-1990 normals, Oaxaca, Oax. (1.1 km from centre). Phuket: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1961-1990) normals, Phuket Airport (26.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureOaxacaPhuket
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaThai
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Baht (THB)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+7
Emergency number911Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation1,555 m19 m
Main airportXoxocotlán International Airport (OAX)7 km from centre14 non-stop destinationsPhuket International Airport (HKT)27 km from centre85 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days-

By the numbers

MeasureOaxacaPhuket
City population258,91377,610
People per km²3,0286,468
Museums within 10 km102
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Oaxaca or Phuket 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.