VacationSelector
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art
The old Tampa Bay Hotel across the river, Tampa
TampaThe old Tampa Bay Hotel across the river

Photos: Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Tampa by Ken Lund, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Santa Fe or Tampa?

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 Fe for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness
  • culture and sights

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

Choose Tampa for

  • beaches
  • families
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Tampa’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 Fe 5, Tampa 70: Tampa leads by 65 points.
Food & drink. Santa Fe 62, Tampa 57: Santa Fe leads by 5 points.
Culture & sights. Santa Fe 66, Tampa 42: Santa Fe leads by 24 points.
Nightlife. Santa Fe 22, Tampa 52: Tampa leads by 30 points.
Nature & outdoors. Santa Fe 80, Tampa 55: Santa Fe leads by 25 points.
Day trips. Santa Fe 70, Tampa 54: Santa Fe leads by 16 points.
Good for families. Santa Fe 45, Tampa 78: Tampa leads by 33 points.
Getting around. Santa Fe 40, Tampa 22: Santa Fe leads by 18 points.
Shopping & style. Santa Fe 62, Tampa 40: Santa Fe leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Santa Fe 30, Tampa 40: Tampa leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. Santa Fe 55, Tampa 47: Santa Fe leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Santa Fe 55, Tampa 30: Santa Fe leads by 25 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Santa Fe and Tampa.

Your match

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

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Santa Fe
49match

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

Tampa
49match

Wins on beaches 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.

Santa Fe in July

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

Tampa in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
197 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Santa FeTampa

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 Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre). Tampa: 1991-2020 normals, Tampa International Airport (7.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSanta FeTampa
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-7, UTC-6 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation2,134 m30 m
Main airportSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinationsTampa International Airport (TPA)8 km from centre101 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureSanta FeTampa
City population87,505384,959
People per km²645848
Museums within 10 km106
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C-8 months

Where else could you go?

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