VacationSelector
Kek Lok Si temple on the hillside, Penang
PenangKek Lok Si temple on the hillside
The Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock, Petra
PetraThe Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock

Photos: Penang by Supanut Arunoprayote, CC BY 4.0, cropped; Petra by Yasir Gürbüz, Pexels License.

Penang or Petra?

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 Penang for

  • food and drink
  • beaches
  • nightlife

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

Choose Petra for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Petra’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. Penang 44, Petra 5: Penang leads by 39 points.
Food & drink. Penang 86, Petra 22: Penang leads by 64 points.
Culture & sights. Penang 70, Petra 85: Petra leads by 15 points.
Nightlife. Penang 40, Petra 5: Penang leads by 35 points.
Nature & outdoors. Penang 55, Petra 78: Petra leads by 23 points.
Day trips. Penang 42, Petra 30: Penang leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Penang 52, Petra 25: Penang leads by 27 points.
Getting around. Penang 40, Petra 25: Penang leads by 15 points.
Shopping & style. Penang 42, Petra 18: Penang leads by 24 points.
Affordability. Penang 78, Petra 45: Penang leads by 33 points.
Live music & performing arts. Penang 30, Petra 10: Penang leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Penang 42, Petra 28: Penang leads by 14 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Penang and Petra.

Your match

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

Penang
Best match
52match

Wins on food and drink and beaches with your weighting.

Petra
31match

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.

Penang in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
189 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
12 hdaylight a day

Petra in July

35 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
PenangPetra

Where the figures come from

Petra's temperatures are measured 34 km from the centre, at Ma'An.

Petra's station stands 219 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

Petra 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. Penang: 1991-2020 normals, Penang / Bayan Lepas (14.5 km from centre). Petra: 1991-2020 normals, Ma'An (33.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePenangPetra
Official languageMalayArabic
CurrencyMalaysian Ringgit (MYR)Jordanian Dinar (JOD)
SocketsG240 V, 50 HzBCFGJ230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+8UTC+3
Emergency number999911
Elevation4 m850 m
Main airportPenang International Airport (PEN)14 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsKing Hussein International Airport (AQJ)90 km from centre5 non-stop destinations

By the numbers

MeasurePenangPetra
City population794,313-
Museums within 10 km92
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
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 Penang or Petra 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. 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. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.