VacationSelector
The Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket, Phuket
PhuketThe Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket
A cobbled street of painted houses in the old town, San Miguel de Allende
San Miguel de AllendeA cobbled street of painted houses in the old town

Photos: Phuket by Mussi Katz, CC0; San Miguel de Allende by Russ Bowling, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Phuket or San Miguel de Allende?

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 Phuket for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • nightlife

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

Choose San Miguel de Allende for

  • day trips
  • culture and sights
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on San Miguel de Allende’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. Phuket 90, San Miguel de Allende 4: Phuket leads by 86 points.
Food & drink. Phuket 66, San Miguel de Allende 62: Phuket leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Phuket 35, San Miguel de Allende 62: San Miguel de Allende leads by 27 points.
Nightlife. Phuket 72, San Miguel de Allende 38: Phuket leads by 34 points.
Nature & outdoors. Phuket 80, San Miguel de Allende 40: Phuket leads by 40 points.
Day trips. Phuket 45, San Miguel de Allende 77: San Miguel de Allende leads by 32 points.
Good for families. Phuket 65, San Miguel de Allende 32: Phuket leads by 33 points.
Getting around. Phuket 22, San Miguel de Allende 48: San Miguel de Allende leads by 26 points.
Shopping & style. Phuket 42, San Miguel de Allende 55: San Miguel de Allende leads by 13 points.
Affordability. Phuket 68, San Miguel de Allende 50: Phuket leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. Phuket 20, San Miguel de Allende 40: San Miguel de Allende leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Phuket 82, San Miguel de Allende 66: Phuket leads by 16 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Phuket and San Miguel de Allende.

Your match

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

Phuket
Best match
57match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

San Miguel de Allende
48match

Wins on day trips 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.

Phuket in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
287 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

San Miguel de Allende in July

29 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
132 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
PhuketSan Miguel de Allende

Where the figures come from

Phuket's temperatures are measured 27 km from the centre, at Phuket Airport.

San Miguel de Allende's temperatures are measured 54 km from the centre, at Guanajuato, Gto..

San Miguel de Allende 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. Phuket: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1961-1990) normals, Phuket Airport (26.9 km from centre). San Miguel de Allende: 1991-2020 normals, Guanajuato, Gto. (53.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePhuketSan Miguel de Allende
Official languageThaiSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyBaht (THB)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsABCF220 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+7UTC-6
Emergency numberPolice 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199911
Elevation19 m1,900 m
Main airportPhuket International Airport (HKT)27 km from centre85 non-stop destinationsGuanajuato International Airport (BJX)77 km from centre22 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-9 days

By the numbers

MeasurePhuketSan Miguel de Allende
City population77,61069,811
People per km²6,468-
Museums within 10 km22
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
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 Phuket or San Miguel de Allende 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.