VacationSelector
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art
Valletta from the water, Valletta
VallettaValletta from the water

Photos: Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Valletta by Pho Tomass, Pexels License.

Santa Fe or Valletta?

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
  • shopping
  • wellness

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

Choose Valletta for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Valletta’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, Valletta 68: Valletta leads by 63 points.
Food & drink. Santa Fe 62, Valletta 55: Santa Fe leads by 7 points.
Culture & sights. Santa Fe 66, Valletta 76: Valletta leads by 10 points.
Nightlife. Santa Fe 22, Valletta 46: Valletta leads by 24 points.
Nature & outdoors. Santa Fe 80, Valletta 56: Santa Fe leads by 24 points.
Day trips. Santa Fe 70, Valletta 76: Valletta leads by 6 points.
Good for families. Santa Fe 45, Valletta 58: Valletta leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Santa Fe 40, Valletta 62: Valletta leads by 22 points.
Shopping & style. Santa Fe 62, Valletta 38: Santa Fe leads by 24 points.
Affordability. Santa Fe 30, Valletta 50: Valletta leads by 20 points.
Live music & performing arts. Santa Fe 55, Valletta 44: Santa Fe leads by 11 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Santa Fe 55, Valletta 32: Santa Fe leads by 23 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Santa Fe and Valletta.

Your match

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

Santa Fe
49match

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

Valletta
Best match
55match

Wins on beaches and nightlife 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

Valletta in July

32 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
Santa FeValletta

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). Valletta: 1991-2020 normals, Luqa (5.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSanta FeValletta
Official language-English, Maltese
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-7, UTC-6 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation2,134 m56 m
Main airportSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinationsMalta International Airport (MLA)6 km from centre113 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureSanta FeValletta
City population87,5055,197
People per km²6456,496
Museums within 10 km1016
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km03
Swim season, months above 21 °C-6 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Santa Fe or Valletta 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.