VacationSelector
Santo Domingo church behind agaves, Oaxaca
OaxacaSanto Domingo church behind agaves
The old railway depot in the snow, Steamboat Springs
Steamboat SpringsThe old railway depot in the snow

Photos: Oaxaca by Öskr Rck, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Steamboat Springs by Jeffrey Beall, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Oaxaca or Steamboat Springs?

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 Steamboat Springs for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • families
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Steamboat Springs’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, Steamboat Springs 7: Steamboat Springs leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Oaxaca 84, Steamboat Springs 30: Oaxaca leads by 54 points.
Culture & sights. Oaxaca 74, Steamboat Springs 14: Oaxaca leads by 60 points.
Nightlife. Oaxaca 40, Steamboat Springs 20: Oaxaca leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Oaxaca 62, Steamboat Springs 88: Steamboat Springs leads by 26 points.
Day trips. Oaxaca 65, Steamboat Springs 12: Oaxaca leads by 53 points.
Good for families. Oaxaca 40, Steamboat Springs 62: Steamboat Springs leads by 22 points.
Getting around. Oaxaca 55, Steamboat Springs 46: Oaxaca leads by 9 points.
Shopping & style. Oaxaca 62, Steamboat Springs 22: Oaxaca leads by 40 points.
Affordability. Oaxaca 77, Steamboat Springs 17: Oaxaca leads by 60 points.
Live music & performing arts. Oaxaca 38, Steamboat Springs 28: Oaxaca leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Oaxaca 50, Steamboat Springs 70: Steamboat Springs leads by 20 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Oaxaca and Steamboat Springs.

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.

Steamboat Springs
35match

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

Steamboat Springs in July

28 °Cdaytime high
10 °Cnight-time low
31 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
OaxacaSteamboat Springs

Where the figures come from

Steamboat Springs 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). Steamboat Springs: 2011-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Steamboat Springs / Steamboat Ii (5.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureOaxacaSteamboat Springs
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya-
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation1,555 m2,052 m
Main airportXoxocotlán International Airport (OAX)7 km from centre14 non-stop destinationsYampa Valley Airport (HDN)33 km from centre17 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureOaxacaSteamboat Springs
City population258,91313,224
People per km²3,028503
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 Steamboat Springs 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. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.