VacationSelector
Santo Domingo church behind agaves, Oaxaca
OaxacaSanto Domingo church behind agaves
Sugarloaf Mountain above the boats in Botafogo Bay, Rio de Janeiro
Rio de JaneiroSugarloaf Mountain above the boats in Botafogo Bay

Photos: Oaxaca by Öskr Rck, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Rio de Janeiro by Arne Müseler, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, cropped.

Oaxaca or Rio de Janeiro?

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

  • food and drink
  • wellness
  • prices

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

Choose Rio de Janeiro for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Rio de Janeiro’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, Rio de Janeiro 92: Rio de Janeiro leads by 87 points.
Food & drink. Oaxaca 84, Rio de Janeiro 62: Oaxaca leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Oaxaca 74, Rio de Janeiro 68: Oaxaca leads by 6 points.
Nightlife. Oaxaca 40, Rio de Janeiro 80: Rio de Janeiro leads by 40 points.
Nature & outdoors. Oaxaca 62, Rio de Janeiro 90: Rio de Janeiro leads by 28 points.
Day trips. Oaxaca 65, Rio de Janeiro 50: Oaxaca leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Oaxaca 40, Rio de Janeiro 50: Rio de Janeiro leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Oaxaca 55, Rio de Janeiro 44: Oaxaca leads by 11 points.
Shopping & style. Oaxaca 62, Rio de Janeiro 50: Oaxaca leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Oaxaca 77, Rio de Janeiro 60: Oaxaca leads by 17 points.
Live music & performing arts. Oaxaca 38, Rio de Janeiro 66: Rio de Janeiro leads by 28 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Oaxaca 50, Rio de Janeiro 30: Oaxaca leads by 20 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Oaxaca and Rio de Janeiro.

Your match

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

Oaxaca
54match

Wins on food and drink and wellness with your weighting.

Rio de Janeiro
Best match
62match

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

Rio de Janeiro in July

24 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
45 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
22 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
OaxacaRio de Janeiro

Where the figures come from

Rio de Janeiro 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). Rio de Janeiro: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureOaxacaRio de Janeiro
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaPortuguese
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Brazilian Real (BRL)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCN60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-3
Emergency number911Police 190, ambulance 192, fire 193
Elevation1,555 m31 m
Main airportXoxocotlán International Airport (OAX)7 km from centre14 non-stop destinationsRio de Janeiro Galeão – Tom Jobim International Airport (GIG)12 km from centre54 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureOaxacaRio de Janeiro
City population258,9136,211,223
People per km²3,0284,930
Museums within 10 km1069
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km23
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 Rio de Janeiro 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.