VacationSelector
The Red Tower and the harbour, Alanya
AlanyaThe Red Tower and the harbour
The Plaza de los Naranjos and its fountain in the old town, Marbella
MarbellaThe Plaza de los Naranjos and its fountain in the old town

Photos: Alanya by Atlantic Ambience, Pexels License; Marbella by Décio Franchini, Pexels License.

Alanya or Marbella?

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

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • getting around

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

Choose Marbella for

  • shopping
  • food and drink
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Marbella’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, Marbella 76: Alanya leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. Alanya 43, Marbella 60: Marbella leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Alanya 44, Marbella 32: Alanya leads by 12 points.
Nightlife. Alanya 58, Marbella 64: Marbella leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Alanya 68, Marbella 70: Marbella leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Alanya 62, Marbella 77: Marbella leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Alanya and Marbella are level on 70.
Getting around. Alanya 50, Marbella 38: Alanya leads by 12 points.
Shopping & style. Alanya 34, Marbella 58: Marbella leads by 24 points.
Affordability. Alanya 65, Marbella 30: Alanya leads by 35 points.
Live music & performing arts. Alanya 15, Marbella 30: Marbella leads by 15 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Alanya 56, Marbella 52: Alanya leads by 4 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Alanya and Marbella.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Alanya
54match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Marbella
55match

Wins on shopping and food and drink 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

Marbella in July

31 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
21 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
AlanyaMarbella

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.

Marbella's temperatures are measured 40 km from the centre, at Malaga / Aeropuerto.

Marbella 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. Alanya: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Marbella: 1991-2020 normals, Malaga / Aeropuerto (39.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAlanyaMarbella
Official languageTurkishSpanish
CurrencyTurkish Lira (TRY)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+3UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation10 m22 m
Main airportGazipaşa-Alanya Airport (GZP)38 km from centre22 non-stop destinationsMálaga-Costa del Sol Airport (AGP)39 km from centre166 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureAlanyaMarbella
City population364,180159,786
People per km²2281,398
Museums within 10 km26
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C7 months3 months

Where else could you go?

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