VacationSelector
The Sanctuary of Truth by the sea, Pattaya
PattayaThe Sanctuary of Truth by the sea
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art

Photos: Pattaya by Matrix, Pexels License; Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Pattaya or Santa Fe?

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

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • prices

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

Choose Santa Fe for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Fe’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 Fe 5: Pattaya leads by 61 points.
Food & drink. Pattaya 58, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Pattaya 30, Santa Fe 66: Santa Fe leads by 36 points.
Nightlife. Pattaya 76, Santa Fe 22: Pattaya leads by 54 points.
Nature & outdoors. Pattaya 40, Santa Fe 80: Santa Fe leads by 40 points.
Day trips. Pattaya 52, Santa Fe 70: Santa Fe leads by 18 points.
Good for families. Pattaya 55, Santa Fe 45: Pattaya leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Pattaya 36, Santa Fe 40: Santa Fe leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Pattaya 42, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Pattaya 84, Santa Fe 30: Pattaya leads by 54 points.
Live music & performing arts. Pattaya 30, Santa Fe 55: Santa Fe leads by 25 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Pattaya 58, Santa Fe 55: Pattaya leads by 3 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Pattaya and Santa Fe.

Your match

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

Pattaya
Best match
52match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Santa Fe
49match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and culture and sights 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 Fe in July

31 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
60 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
PattayaSanta Fe

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.

Santa Fe's station stands 199 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Santa Fe 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. Pattaya: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1961-1990, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Sattahip (31.2 km from centre). Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePattayaSanta Fe
Official languageThai-
CurrencyBaht (THB)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsABCF220 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+7UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199911
Elevation35 m2,134 m
Main airportSuvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)83 km from centre150 non-stop destinationsSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-13 days

By the numbers

MeasurePattayaSanta Fe
City population119,53287,505
People per km²-645
Museums within 10 km010
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

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