VacationSelector
The church of San Francisco under a blue sky, Quito
QuitoThe church of San Francisco under a blue sky
The old Bath House in the Government Gardens, Rotorua
RotoruaThe old Bath House in the Government Gardens

Photos: Quito by Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Rotorua by W. Bulach, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Quito or Rotorua?

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 Quito for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • nightlife

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

Choose Rotorua for

  • wellness
  • families
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Rotorua’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. Quito 5, Rotorua 33: Rotorua leads by 28 points.
Food & drink. Quito 54, Rotorua 33: Quito leads by 21 points.
Culture & sights. Quito 77, Rotorua 38: Quito leads by 39 points.
Nightlife. Quito 40, Rotorua 14: Quito leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Quito and Rotorua are level on 86.
Day trips. Quito 55, Rotorua 45: Quito leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Quito 32, Rotorua 68: Rotorua leads by 36 points.
Getting around. Quito 45, Rotorua 30: Quito leads by 15 points.
Shopping & style. Quito 40, Rotorua 22: Quito leads by 18 points.
Affordability. Quito 78, Rotorua 36: Quito leads by 42 points.
Live music & performing arts. Quito 38, Rotorua 30: Quito leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Quito 44, Rotorua 86: Rotorua leads by 42 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Quito and Rotorua.

Your match

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

Quito
Best match
50match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Rotorua
43match

Wins on wellness and families with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Quito in July

18 °Cdaytime high
5 °Cnight-time low
32 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
12 hdaylight a day

Rotorua in July

11 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
113 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
15 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°5°10°15°20°25°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
QuitoRotorua

Where the figures come from

Quito's station stands 208 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

Rotorua 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. Quito: 1961-1990 normals, Izobamba-Santa Catalina (16.8 km from centre). Rotorua: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureQuitoRotorua
Official languageSpanish, Shuar, Northern QuichuaEnglish, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency number911111
Elevation2,850 m280 m
Main airportMariscal Sucre International Airport (UIO)20 km from centre22 non-stop destinationsRotorua Regional Airport (ROT)7 km from centre3 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureQuitoRotorua
City population1,763,27558,500
People per km²4,73522
Museums within 10 km161
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °C-None

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Quito or Rotorua 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. 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.