VacationSelector
Santo Domingo church behind agaves, Oaxaca
OaxacaSanto Domingo church behind agaves
The statue of Columbus in Parque Colon before the cathedral, Santo Domingo
Santo DomingoThe statue of Columbus in Parque Colon before the cathedral

Photos: Oaxaca by Öskr Rck, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Santo Domingo by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Oaxaca or Santo Domingo?

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

  • wellness
  • food and drink
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Santo Domingo for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Santo Domingo’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, Santo Domingo 58: Santo Domingo leads by 53 points.
Food & drink. Oaxaca 84, Santo Domingo 58: Oaxaca leads by 26 points.
Culture & sights. Oaxaca 74, Santo Domingo 64: Oaxaca leads by 10 points.
Nightlife. Oaxaca 40, Santo Domingo 66: Santo Domingo leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Oaxaca 62, Santo Domingo 36: Oaxaca leads by 26 points.
Day trips. Oaxaca 65, Santo Domingo 44: Oaxaca leads by 21 points.
Good for families. Oaxaca and Santo Domingo are level on 40.
Getting around. Oaxaca 55, Santo Domingo 40: Oaxaca leads by 15 points.
Shopping & style. Oaxaca 62, Santo Domingo 44: Oaxaca leads by 18 points.
Affordability. Oaxaca 77, Santo Domingo 66: Oaxaca leads by 11 points.
Live music & performing arts. Oaxaca 38, Santo Domingo 46: Santo Domingo leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Oaxaca 50, Santo Domingo 22: Oaxaca leads by 28 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Oaxaca and Santo Domingo.

Your match

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

Oaxaca
Best match
54match

Wins on wellness and food and drink with your weighting.

Santo Domingo
49match

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

Santo Domingo in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
183 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
OaxacaSanto Domingo

Where the figures come from

Santo Domingo 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. Oaxaca: 1961-1990 normals, Oaxaca, Oax. (1.1 km from centre). Santo Domingo: 1991-2020 normals, Santo Domingo (6.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureOaxacaSanto Domingo
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Dominican Peso (DOP)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB110 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-4
Emergency number911911
Elevation1,555 m14 m
Main airportXoxocotlán International Airport (OAX)7 km from centre14 non-stop destinationsLas Américas International Airport (SDQ)28 km from centre40 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureOaxacaSanto Domingo
City population258,9132,201,941
People per km²3,0281,691
Museums within 10 km1010
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
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 Santo Domingo 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. 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.