VacationSelector
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art
Victoria Falls and its gorge from a helicopter, Victoria Falls
Victoria FallsVictoria Falls and its gorge from a helicopter

Photos: Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Victoria Falls by Murray Foubister, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Santa Fe or Victoria Falls?

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

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Victoria Falls for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • getting around
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Victoria Falls’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, Victoria Falls 7: Victoria Falls leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Santa Fe 62, Victoria Falls 24: Santa Fe leads by 38 points.
Culture & sights. Santa Fe 66, Victoria Falls 12: Santa Fe leads by 54 points.
Nightlife. Santa Fe 22, Victoria Falls 8: Santa Fe leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. Santa Fe 80, Victoria Falls 94: Victoria Falls leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Santa Fe 70, Victoria Falls 22: Santa Fe leads by 48 points.
Good for families. Santa Fe 45, Victoria Falls 38: Santa Fe leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Santa Fe 40, Victoria Falls 45: Victoria Falls leads by 5 points.
Shopping & style. Santa Fe 62, Victoria Falls 18: Santa Fe leads by 44 points.
Affordability. Santa Fe 30, Victoria Falls 32: Victoria Falls leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Santa Fe 55, Victoria Falls 10: Santa Fe leads by 45 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Santa Fe 55, Victoria Falls 34: Santa Fe leads by 21 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Santa Fe and Victoria Falls.

Your match

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

Santa Fe
Best match
49match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips with your weighting.

Victoria Falls
29match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and getting around 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
14 hdaylight a day

Victoria Falls in July

26 °Cdaytime high
8 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
11 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
Santa FeVictoria Falls

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). Victoria Falls: 1991-2020 normals, Livingstone (13.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSanta FeVictoria Falls
Official language-English, Xhosa, Ndau, Venda, Chewa, Khoisan, Kalanga, Shona, Tonga, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Northern Ndebele, Nambya, Zimbabwe Sign Language, Barwe
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Zimbabwe Gold (ZWG)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzG220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-7, UTC-6 in summerUTC+2
Emergency number911999
Elevation2,134 m961 m
Main airportSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinationsVictoria Falls International Airport (VFA)18 km from centre12 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureSanta FeVictoria Falls
City population87,50533,060
People per km²645-
Museums within 10 km102
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00

Where else could you go?

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