VacationSelector
White sand and turquoise water at Pensacola Beach, Pensacola
PensacolaWhite sand and turquoise water at Pensacola Beach
The Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock, Petra
PetraThe Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock

Photos: Pensacola by Jason Meredith, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Petra by Yasir Gürbüz, Pexels License.

Pensacola 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 Pensacola for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • families

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

Choose Petra for

  • culture and sights
  • nature and the outdoors
  • getting around

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. Pensacola 84, Petra 5: Pensacola leads by 79 points.
Food & drink. Pensacola 45, Petra 22: Pensacola leads by 23 points.
Culture & sights. Pensacola 45, Petra 85: Petra leads by 40 points.
Nightlife. Pensacola 42, Petra 5: Pensacola leads by 37 points.
Nature & outdoors. Pensacola 62, Petra 78: Petra leads by 16 points.
Day trips. Pensacola 45, Petra 30: Pensacola leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Pensacola 62, Petra 25: Pensacola leads by 37 points.
Getting around. Pensacola 18, Petra 25: Petra leads by 7 points.
Shopping & style. Pensacola 28, Petra 18: Pensacola leads by 10 points.
Affordability. Pensacola 44, Petra 45: Petra leads by 1 points.
Live music & performing arts. Pensacola 36, Petra 10: Pensacola leads by 26 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Pensacola 30, Petra 28: Pensacola leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Pensacola and Petra.

Your match

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

Pensacola
Best match
45match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Petra
31match

Wins on culture and sights and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Pensacola in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
200 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
14 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

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
PensacolaPetra

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. Pensacola: 1991-2020 normals, Pensacola / Pleasant Grove (12.3 km from centre). Petra: 1991-2020 normals, Ma'An (33.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePensacolaPetra
Official language-Arabic
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Jordanian Dinar (JOD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzBCFGJ230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6, UTC-5 in summerUTC+3
Emergency number911911
Elevation31 m850 m
Main airportPensacola International Airport (PNS)6 km from centre27 non-stop destinationsKing Hussein International Airport (AQJ)90 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days-

By the numbers

MeasurePensacolaPetra
City population54,312-
People per km²515-
Museums within 10 km52
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C7 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Pensacola 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). 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.