VacationSelector

Sao Paulo or Varanasi?

Two destinations compared in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

São Paulo Cathedral, Sao Paulo
Sao Paulo

Photo: Webysther Nunes, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped

Rowing boats below the ghats in the morning light, Varanasi
Varanasi

Photo: Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped

Your match

Sao Paulo
✓ Best match
58
match

Wins on nightlife and families with your weighting.

Varanasi
40
match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

Scoreboard

Our verdict on each category, scored 0 to 100 against fixed benchmark cities.

Sao PauloVaranasi
Beaches & swimming. Sao Paulo leads by 38 points.38
Food & drink. Sao Paulo leads by 29 points.29
Culture & sights. Varanasi leads by 20 points.20
Nightlife. Sao Paulo leads by 76 points.76
Nature & outdoors. Sao Paulo leads by 30 points.30
Day trips. Sao Paulo leads by 5 points.5
Good for families. Sao Paulo leads by 47 points.47
Getting around. Sao Paulo leads by 16 points.16
Shopping & style. Sao Paulo leads by 15 points.15
Affordability. Varanasi leads by 30 points.30
Live music & performing arts. Sao Paulo leads by 18 points.18
Wellness & relaxation. Varanasi leads by 5 points.5
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Sao Paulo and Varanasi.

When should you go?

Pick the month you can travel and see both cities side by side. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Climate figures for July
JulySao PauloVaranasi
Daytime high23 °C35 °C
Night-time low13 °C27 °C
Rainfall in the month53 mm249 mm
Sunshine6 hours a dayNo figure
Daylight11 hours a day14 hours a day

The whole year

Each row is shaded against that destination’s own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that figure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Sao Paulo
28
29
28
27
24
23
23
25
25
27
27
28
Varanasi
24
29
35
41
43
41
35
33
32
32
28
24
Rainfall, mm
Sao Paulo
297
259
206
89
64
55
53
26
82
128
146
234
Varanasi
12
14
10
11
23
110
249
200
146
34
2
5
Daylight, hours per day
Sao Paulo
13
13
12
12
11
11
11
11
12
13
13
14
Varanasi
11
11
12
13
13
14
14
13
12
12
11
11
Sunshine, hours per day
Sao Paulo
4
6
6
5
5
5
6
6
5
6
5
5
Varanasi
No sunshine record

Where the figures come from

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. Sao Paulo: 1991-2020 normals, Sao Paulo (5.9 km from centre). Varanasi: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

WorseBetter

Before you go

MeasureSao PauloVaranasi
Official languagePortugueseHindi, English
CurrencyBrazilian Real (BRL)Indian Rupee (INR)
SocketsCN60 HzCM230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-3UTC+5:30
Emergency numberPolice 190, ambulance 192, fire 193108 or 112
Elevation760 m76 m
Main airportSão Paulo/Guarulhos–Governor André Franco Montoro International Airport (GRU)21 km from centre104 non-stop destinationsLal Bahadur Shastri International Airport (VNS)21 km from centre16 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days-

By the numbers

MeasureSao PauloVaranasi
City population11,451,9991,198,491
People per km²7,51914,598
Museums within 10 km902
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Sao Paulo or Varanasi somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate and flight figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-27. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.