VacationSelector
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art
The beach and the oceanfront hotels from the fishing pier, Virginia Beach
Virginia BeachThe beach and the oceanfront hotels from the fishing pier

Photos: Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Virginia Beach by SchuminWeb, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Santa Fe or Virginia Beach?

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
  • shopping
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Virginia Beach for

  • beaches
  • families
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Virginia Beach’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, Virginia Beach 77: Virginia Beach leads by 72 points.
Food & drink. Santa Fe 62, Virginia Beach 42: Santa Fe leads by 20 points.
Culture & sights. Santa Fe 66, Virginia Beach 30: Santa Fe leads by 36 points.
Nightlife. Santa Fe 22, Virginia Beach 37: Virginia Beach leads by 15 points.
Nature & outdoors. Santa Fe 80, Virginia Beach 56: Santa Fe leads by 24 points.
Day trips. Santa Fe 70, Virginia Beach 64: Santa Fe leads by 6 points.
Good for families. Santa Fe 45, Virginia Beach 75: Virginia Beach leads by 30 points.
Getting around. Santa Fe 40, Virginia Beach 27: Santa Fe leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Santa Fe 62, Virginia Beach 32: Santa Fe leads by 30 points.
Affordability. Santa Fe 30, Virginia Beach 40: Virginia Beach leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. Santa Fe 55, Virginia Beach 38: Santa Fe leads by 17 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Santa Fe 55, Virginia Beach 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 Virginia Beach.

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 shopping with your weighting.

Virginia Beach
46match

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 seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Virginia Beach in July

31 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
152 mmrain in the month
25 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
Santa FeVirginia Beach

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). Virginia Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Virginia Beach / Gatewood Park (5.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSanta FeVirginia Beach
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 m7 m
Main airportSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinationsNorfolk International Airport (ORF)20 km from centre42 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureSanta FeVirginia Beach
City population87,505459,470
People per km²645-
Museums within 10 km102
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C-4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Santa Fe or Virginia Beach 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.