VacationSelector
Santo Domingo church behind agaves, Oaxaca
OaxacaSanto Domingo church behind agaves
A chairlift and the runs on Whistler Mountain, Whistler
WhistlerA chairlift and the runs on Whistler Mountain

Photos: Oaxaca by Öskr Rck, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Whistler by Ruth Hartnup, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Oaxaca or Whistler?

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

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

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

Choose Whistler for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • families
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Whistler’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, Whistler 30: Whistler leads by 25 points.
Food & drink. Oaxaca 84, Whistler 40: Oaxaca leads by 44 points.
Culture & sights. Oaxaca 74, Whistler 20: Oaxaca leads by 54 points.
Nightlife. Oaxaca 40, Whistler 42: Whistler leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Oaxaca 62, Whistler 97: Whistler leads by 35 points.
Day trips. Oaxaca 65, Whistler 30: Oaxaca leads by 35 points.
Good for families. Oaxaca 40, Whistler 68: Whistler leads by 28 points.
Getting around. Oaxaca 55, Whistler 68: Whistler leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Oaxaca 62, Whistler 30: Oaxaca leads by 32 points.
Affordability. Oaxaca 77, Whistler 12: Oaxaca leads by 65 points.
Live music & performing arts. Oaxaca 38, Whistler 15: Oaxaca leads by 23 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Oaxaca 50, Whistler 60: Whistler leads by 10 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Oaxaca and Whistler.

Your match

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

Oaxaca
Best match
54match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Whistler
43match

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

Whistler in July

25 °Cdaytime high
10 °Cnight-time low
46 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
16 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
OaxacaWhistler

Where the figures come from

Whistler 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). Whistler: 1991-2020 normals, Whistler - Nesters (1.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureOaxacaWhistler
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaFrench, English
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Canadian Dollar (CAD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation1,555 m670 m
Main airportXoxocotlán International Airport (OAX)7 km from centre14 non-stop destinationsVancouver International Airport (YVR)104 km from centre109 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureOaxacaWhistler
City population258,91313,982
People per km²3,02858
Museums within 10 km101
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 Whistler 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.