VacationSelector
The Red Tower and the harbour, Alanya
AlanyaThe Red Tower and the harbour
Haedong Yonggungsa temple on the rocks by the sea, Busan
BusanHaedong Yonggungsa temple on the rocks by the sea

Photos: Alanya by Atlantic Ambience, Pexels License; Busan by Andrea De Santis, Pexels License.

Alanya or Busan?

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 Alanya for

  • beaches
  • prices

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

Choose Busan for

  • food and drink
  • live music and the arts
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Busan’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. Alanya 84, Busan 68: Alanya leads by 16 points.
Food & drink. Alanya 43, Busan 72: Busan leads by 29 points.
Culture & sights. Alanya 44, Busan 52: Busan leads by 8 points.
Nightlife. Alanya 58, Busan 60: Busan leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Alanya 68, Busan 74: Busan leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Alanya 62, Busan 74: Busan leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Alanya and Busan are level on 70.
Getting around. Alanya 50, Busan 68: Busan leads by 18 points.
Shopping & style. Alanya 34, Busan 60: Busan leads by 26 points.
Affordability. Alanya 65, Busan 56: Alanya leads by 9 points.
Live music & performing arts. Alanya 15, Busan 42: Busan leads by 27 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Alanya 56, Busan 78: Busan leads by 22 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Alanya and Busan.

Your match

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

Alanya
54match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Busan
Best match
65match

Wins on food and drink and live music and the arts with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Alanya in July

32 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
3 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Busan in July

27 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
352 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
23 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
AlanyaBusan

Where the figures come from

Alanya 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. Alanya: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Busan: 1991-2020 normals, Pusan (9.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAlanyaBusan
Official languageTurkishKorean, Korean Sign Language
CurrencyTurkish Lira (TRY)Won (KRW)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF220 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+3UTC+9
Emergency number112Police 112, ambulance 119, fire 119
Elevation10 m30 m
Main airportGazipaşa-Alanya Airport (GZP)38 km from centre22 non-stop destinationsGimhae International Airport (PUS)12 km from centre49 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days18 days

By the numbers

MeasureAlanyaBusan
City population364,1803,453,198
People per km²2284,486
Museums within 10 km27
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km03
Swim season, months above 21 °C7 months4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Alanya or Busan somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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.