Photos: Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Varanasi by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.
Santa Fe or Varanasi?
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
- families
- day trips
What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Fe’s own page.
Choose Varanasi for
- prices
- culture and sights
- live music and the arts
What lies behind each score is written up on Varanasi’s own page.
Scoreboard
Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.
What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Santa Fe and Varanasi.
Your match
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.
Wins on nature and the outdoors and families with your weighting.
Wins on prices and culture and sights 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
Varanasi in July
Daytime high, °C
Rainfall in the month, mm
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.
Varanasi 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. Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre). Varanasi: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.
Before you go
| Measure | Santa Fe | Varanasi |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | - | Hindi, English |
| Currency | US Dollar (USD) | Indian Rupee (INR) |
| Sockets | AB120 V, 60 Hz | CM230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Left |
| Time zone | UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer | UTC+5:30 |
| Emergency number | 911 | 108 or 112 |
| Elevation | 2,134 m | 76 m |
| Main airport | Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinations | Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport (VNS)21 km from centre16 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | - |
By the numbers
| Measure | Santa Fe | Varanasi |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 87,505 | 1,198,491 |
| People per km² | 645 | 14,598 |
| Museums within 10 km | 10 | 2 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 0 | 1 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Santa Fe or Varanasi somewhere new.