VacationSelector
Santo Domingo church behind agaves, Oaxaca
OaxacaSanto Domingo church behind agaves
The old Bath House in the Government Gardens, Rotorua
RotoruaThe old Bath House in the Government Gardens

Photos: Oaxaca by Öskr Rck, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Rotorua by W. Bulach, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Oaxaca or Rotorua?

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
  • prices
  • shopping

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

Choose Rotorua for

  • wellness
  • beaches
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Rotorua’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, Rotorua 33: Rotorua leads by 28 points.
Food & drink. Oaxaca 84, Rotorua 33: Oaxaca leads by 51 points.
Culture & sights. Oaxaca 74, Rotorua 38: Oaxaca leads by 36 points.
Nightlife. Oaxaca 40, Rotorua 14: Oaxaca leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Oaxaca 62, Rotorua 86: Rotorua leads by 24 points.
Day trips. Oaxaca 65, Rotorua 45: Oaxaca leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Oaxaca 40, Rotorua 68: Rotorua leads by 28 points.
Getting around. Oaxaca 55, Rotorua 30: Oaxaca leads by 25 points.
Shopping & style. Oaxaca 62, Rotorua 22: Oaxaca leads by 40 points.
Affordability. Oaxaca 77, Rotorua 36: Oaxaca leads by 41 points.
Live music & performing arts. Oaxaca 38, Rotorua 30: Oaxaca leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Oaxaca 50, Rotorua 86: Rotorua leads by 36 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Oaxaca and Rotorua.

Your match

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

Oaxaca
Best match
54match

Wins on food and drink and prices with your weighting.

Rotorua
43match

Wins on wellness and beaches 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

Rotorua in July

11 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
113 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
15 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
OaxacaRotorua

Where the figures come from

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

Before you go

MeasureOaxacaRotorua
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 m280 m
Main airportXoxocotlán International Airport (OAX)7 km from centre14 non-stop destinationsRotorua Regional Airport (ROT)7 km from centre3 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureOaxacaRotorua
City population258,91358,500
People per km²3,02822
Museums within 10 km101
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °C-None

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Oaxaca or Rotorua 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.