VacationSelector
The County Courthouse and its garden, Santa Barbara
Santa BarbaraThe County Courthouse and its garden
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art

Photos: Santa Barbara by Warren LeMay, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Santa Barbara or Santa Fe?

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 Santa Barbara for

  • beaches
  • families
  • nightlife

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

Choose Santa Fe for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Fe’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. Santa Barbara 60, Santa Fe 5: Santa Barbara leads by 55 points.
Food & drink. Santa Barbara and Santa Fe are level on 62.
Culture & sights. Santa Barbara 48, Santa Fe 66: Santa Fe leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. Santa Barbara 34, Santa Fe 22: Santa Barbara leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. Santa Barbara and Santa Fe are level on 80.
Day trips. Santa Barbara 55, Santa Fe 70: Santa Fe leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Santa Barbara 64, Santa Fe 45: Santa Barbara leads by 19 points.
Getting around. Santa Barbara 46, Santa Fe 40: Santa Barbara leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. Santa Barbara 45, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 17 points.
Affordability. Santa Barbara 15, Santa Fe 30: Santa Fe leads by 15 points.
Live music & performing arts. Santa Barbara 50, Santa Fe 55: Santa Fe leads by 5 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Santa Barbara 50, Santa Fe 55: Santa Fe leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Santa Barbara and Santa Fe.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Santa Barbara
51match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Santa Fe
49match

Wins on culture and sights and shopping with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Santa Barbara in July

24 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
18 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Santa Fe in July

31 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
60 mmrain in the month
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
Santa BarbaraSanta Fe

Where the figures come from

Santa Fe's station stands 199 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Santa Fe 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. Santa Barbara: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Barbara / La Patera (11.7 km from centre). Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSanta BarbaraSanta Fe
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation15 m2,134 m
Main airportSanta Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA)12 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureSanta BarbaraSanta Fe
City population88,66587,505
People per km²816645
Museums within 10 km1010
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Santa Barbara or Santa Fe 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.