VacationSelector
Sugarloaf Mountain above the boats in Botafogo Bay, Rio de Janeiro
Rio de JaneiroSugarloaf Mountain above the boats in Botafogo Bay
A cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan, San Juan
San JuanA cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan

Photos: Rio de Janeiro by Arne Müseler, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, cropped; San Juan by Mohan Nannapaneni, Pexels License.

Rio de Janeiro or San Juan?

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 Rio de Janeiro for

  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Rio de Janeiro’s own page.

Choose San Juan for

  • wellness
  • families
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on San Juan’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. Rio de Janeiro 92, San Juan 84: Rio de Janeiro leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. Rio de Janeiro 62, San Juan 66: San Juan leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Rio de Janeiro 68, San Juan 64: Rio de Janeiro leads by 4 points.
Nightlife. Rio de Janeiro 80, San Juan 70: Rio de Janeiro leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Rio de Janeiro 90, San Juan 74: Rio de Janeiro leads by 16 points.
Day trips. Rio de Janeiro 50, San Juan 52: San Juan leads by 2 points.
Good for families. Rio de Janeiro 50, San Juan 58: San Juan leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Rio de Janeiro 44, San Juan 38: Rio de Janeiro leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. Rio de Janeiro and San Juan are level on 50.
Affordability. Rio de Janeiro 60, San Juan 38: Rio de Janeiro leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. Rio de Janeiro 66, San Juan 55: Rio de Janeiro leads by 11 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Rio de Janeiro 30, San Juan 40: San Juan leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Rio de Janeiro and San Juan.

Your match

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

Rio de Janeiro
Best match
62match

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

San Juan
57match

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.

Rio de Janeiro in July

24 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
45 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
22 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

San Juan in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Rio de JaneiroSan Juan

Where the figures come from

Rio de Janeiro 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. Rio de Janeiro: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. San Juan: 1991-2020 normals, San Juan / Int., Puerto Rico (12.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureRio de JaneiroSan Juan
Official languagePortugueseSpanish, English
CurrencyBrazilian Real (BRL)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCN60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-3UTC-4
Emergency numberPolice 190, ambulance 192, fire 193911
Elevation31 m3 m
Main airportRio de Janeiro Galeão – Tom Jobim International Airport (GIG)12 km from centre54 non-stop destinationsLuis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU)12 km from centre59 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days21 days

By the numbers

MeasureRio de JaneiroSan Juan
City population6,211,223342,259
People per km²4,9302,847
Museums within 10 km6918
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km31
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 Rio de Janeiro or San Juan somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.