VacationSelector
The Sanctuary of Truth by the sea, Pattaya
PattayaThe Sanctuary of Truth by the sea
The County Courthouse and its garden, Santa Barbara
Santa BarbaraThe County Courthouse and its garden

Photos: Pattaya by Matrix, Pexels License; Santa Barbara by Warren LeMay, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Pattaya or Santa Barbara?

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 Pattaya for

  • prices
  • nightlife
  • wellness

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

Choose Santa Barbara for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Barbara’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. Pattaya 66, Santa Barbara 60: Pattaya leads by 6 points.
Food & drink. Pattaya 58, Santa Barbara 62: Santa Barbara leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Pattaya 30, Santa Barbara 48: Santa Barbara leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. Pattaya 76, Santa Barbara 34: Pattaya leads by 42 points.
Nature & outdoors. Pattaya 40, Santa Barbara 80: Santa Barbara leads by 40 points.
Day trips. Pattaya 52, Santa Barbara 55: Santa Barbara leads by 3 points.
Good for families. Pattaya 55, Santa Barbara 64: Santa Barbara leads by 9 points.
Getting around. Pattaya 36, Santa Barbara 46: Santa Barbara leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Pattaya 42, Santa Barbara 45: Santa Barbara leads by 3 points.
Affordability. Pattaya 84, Santa Barbara 15: Pattaya leads by 69 points.
Live music & performing arts. Pattaya 30, Santa Barbara 50: Santa Barbara leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Pattaya 58, Santa Barbara 50: Pattaya leads by 8 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Pattaya and Santa Barbara.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Pattaya
52match

Wins on prices and nightlife with your weighting.

Santa Barbara
51match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and live music and the arts with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Pattaya in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
102 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Santa Barbara in July

24 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
18 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
PattayaSanta Barbara

Where the figures come from

Pattaya's temperatures are measured 31 km from the centre, at Sattahip.

Pattaya 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.

Pattaya's sunshine is measured 86 km from the centre, at Bangna Agromet / Ban Khlong Samrong.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Pattaya: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1961-1990, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Sattahip (31.2 km from centre). Santa Barbara: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Barbara / La Patera (11.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePattayaSanta Barbara
Official languageThai-
CurrencyBaht (THB)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsABCF220 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+7UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199911
Elevation35 m15 m
Main airportSuvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)83 km from centre150 non-stop destinationsSanta Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA)12 km from centre13 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-13 days

By the numbers

MeasurePattayaSanta Barbara
City population119,53288,665
People per km²-816
Museums within 10 km010
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Pattaya or Santa Barbara somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). 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. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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.