VacationSelector
The Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket, Phuket
PhuketThe Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket
The Tugu monument in the centre of Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta
YogyakartaThe Tugu monument in the centre of Yogyakarta

Photos: Phuket by Mussi Katz, CC0; Yogyakarta by CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Phuket or Yogyakarta?

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
  • nightlife
  • wellness

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

Choose Yogyakarta for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Yogyakarta’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, Yogyakarta 22: Phuket leads by 68 points.
Food & drink. Phuket 66, Yogyakarta 62: Phuket leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Phuket 35, Yogyakarta 68: Yogyakarta leads by 33 points.
Nightlife. Phuket 72, Yogyakarta 32: Phuket leads by 40 points.
Nature & outdoors. Phuket 80, Yogyakarta 72: Phuket leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Phuket 45, Yogyakarta 78: Yogyakarta leads by 33 points.
Good for families. Phuket 65, Yogyakarta 40: Phuket leads by 25 points.
Getting around. Phuket 22, Yogyakarta 35: Yogyakarta leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Phuket 42, Yogyakarta 52: Yogyakarta leads by 10 points.
Affordability. Phuket 68, Yogyakarta 92: Yogyakarta leads by 24 points.
Live music & performing arts. Phuket 20, Yogyakarta 58: Yogyakarta leads by 38 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Phuket 82, Yogyakarta 50: Phuket leads by 32 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Phuket and Yogyakarta.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Phuket
57match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Yogyakarta
55match

Wins on live music and the arts 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
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Yogyakarta in July

28 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
55 mmrain in the month
26 °Csea
12 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
PhuketYogyakarta

Where the figures come from

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

Yogyakarta has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

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). Yogyakarta: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasurePhuketYogyakarta
Official languageThaiIndonesian
CurrencyBaht (THB)Rupiah (IDR)
SocketsABCF220 V, 50 HzCF50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+7UTC+7
Emergency numberPolice 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199112
Elevation19 m113 m
Main airportPhuket International Airport (HKT)27 km from centre85 non-stop destinationsYogyakarta International Airport (YIA)39 km from centre20 non-stop destinations

By the numbers

MeasurePhuketYogyakarta
City population77,610422,732
People per km²6,46813,007
Museums within 10 km238
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km03
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Phuket or Yogyakarta 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.