VacationSelector
Santo Domingo church behind agaves, Oaxaca
OaxacaSanto Domingo church behind agaves
The wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind, Queenstown
QueenstownThe wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind

Photos: Oaxaca by Öskr Rck, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Queenstown by Robert Linsdell, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Oaxaca or Queenstown?

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
  • prices
  • food and drink

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

Choose Queenstown for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • families
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Queenstown’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, Queenstown 20: Queenstown leads by 15 points.
Food & drink. Oaxaca 84, Queenstown 45: Oaxaca leads by 39 points.
Culture & sights. Oaxaca 74, Queenstown 12: Oaxaca leads by 62 points.
Nightlife. Oaxaca 40, Queenstown 42: Queenstown leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Oaxaca 62, Queenstown 97: Queenstown leads by 35 points.
Day trips. Oaxaca 65, Queenstown 50: Oaxaca leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Oaxaca 40, Queenstown 60: Queenstown leads by 20 points.
Getting around. Oaxaca 55, Queenstown 45: Oaxaca leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Oaxaca 62, Queenstown 28: Oaxaca leads by 34 points.
Affordability. Oaxaca 77, Queenstown 20: Oaxaca leads by 57 points.
Live music & performing arts. Oaxaca 38, Queenstown 14: Oaxaca leads by 24 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Oaxaca 50, Queenstown 42: Oaxaca leads by 8 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Oaxaca and Queenstown.

Your match

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

Oaxaca
Best match
54match

Wins on culture and sights and prices with your weighting.

Queenstown
40match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and families 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
13 hdaylight a day

Queenstown in July

6 °Cdaytime high
-1 °Cnight-time low
115 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
9 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
OaxacaQueenstown

Where the figures come from

Queenstown has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Oaxaca: 1961-1990 normals, Oaxaca, Oax. (1.1 km from centre). Queenstown: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureOaxacaQueenstown
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaEnglish, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency number911111
Elevation1,555 m324 m
Main airportXoxocotlán International Airport (OAX)7 km from centre14 non-stop destinationsQueenstown Airport (ZQN)7 km from centre7 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureOaxacaQueenstown
City population258,91329,000
People per km²3,028-
Museums within 10 km100
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Oaxaca or Queenstown 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.