VacationSelector
The Sanctuary of Truth by the sea, Pattaya
PattayaThe Sanctuary of Truth by the sea
Victoria Falls and its gorge from a helicopter, Victoria Falls
Victoria FallsVictoria Falls and its gorge from a helicopter

Photos: Pattaya by Matrix, Pexels License; Victoria Falls by Murray Foubister, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Pattaya or Victoria Falls?

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

  • nightlife
  • beaches
  • prices

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

Choose Victoria Falls for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Victoria Falls’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, Victoria Falls 7: Pattaya leads by 59 points.
Food & drink. Pattaya 58, Victoria Falls 24: Pattaya leads by 34 points.
Culture & sights. Pattaya 30, Victoria Falls 12: Pattaya leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. Pattaya 76, Victoria Falls 8: Pattaya leads by 68 points.
Nature & outdoors. Pattaya 40, Victoria Falls 94: Victoria Falls leads by 54 points.
Day trips. Pattaya 52, Victoria Falls 22: Pattaya leads by 30 points.
Good for families. Pattaya 55, Victoria Falls 38: Pattaya leads by 17 points.
Getting around. Pattaya 36, Victoria Falls 45: Victoria Falls leads by 9 points.
Shopping & style. Pattaya 42, Victoria Falls 18: Pattaya leads by 24 points.
Affordability. Pattaya 84, Victoria Falls 32: Pattaya leads by 52 points.
Live music & performing arts. Pattaya 30, Victoria Falls 10: Pattaya leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Pattaya 58, Victoria Falls 34: Pattaya leads by 24 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Pattaya and Victoria Falls.

Your match

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

Pattaya
Best match
52match

Wins on nightlife and beaches with your weighting.

Victoria Falls
29match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and getting around 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

Victoria Falls in July

26 °Cdaytime high
8 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
11 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
PattayaVictoria Falls

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). Victoria Falls: 1991-2020 normals, Livingstone (13.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePattayaVictoria Falls
Official languageThaiEnglish, Xhosa, Ndau, Venda, Chewa, Khoisan, Kalanga, Shona, Tonga, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Northern Ndebele, Nambya, Zimbabwe Sign Language, Barwe
CurrencyBaht (THB)Zimbabwe Gold (ZWG)
SocketsABCF220 V, 50 HzG220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+7UTC+2
Emergency numberPolice 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199999
Elevation35 m961 m
Main airportSuvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)83 km from centre150 non-stop destinationsVictoria Falls International Airport (VFA)18 km from centre12 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-13 days

By the numbers

MeasurePattayaVictoria Falls
City population119,53233,060
Museums within 10 km02
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 Victoria Falls 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.