VacationSelector
The Red Tower and the harbour, Alanya
AlanyaThe Red Tower and the harbour
Cliff-top hotels above the harbour, Sorrento
SorrentoCliff-top hotels above the harbour

Photos: Alanya by Atlantic Ambience, Pexels License; Sorrento by Berthold Werner, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Alanya or Sorrento?

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
  • nightlife
  • families

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

Choose Sorrento for

  • day trips
  • food and drink
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Sorrento’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, Sorrento 60: Alanya leads by 24 points.
Food & drink. Alanya 43, Sorrento 60: Sorrento leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Alanya 44, Sorrento 32: Alanya leads by 12 points.
Nightlife. Alanya 58, Sorrento 28: Alanya leads by 30 points.
Nature & outdoors. Alanya 68, Sorrento 80: Sorrento leads by 12 points.
Day trips. Alanya 62, Sorrento 95: Sorrento leads by 33 points.
Good for families. Alanya 70, Sorrento 42: Alanya leads by 28 points.
Getting around. Alanya 50, Sorrento 58: Sorrento leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Alanya 34, Sorrento 38: Sorrento leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Alanya 65, Sorrento 32: Alanya leads by 33 points.
Live music & performing arts. Alanya 15, Sorrento 20: Sorrento leads by 5 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Alanya 56, Sorrento 48: Alanya leads by 8 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Alanya and Sorrento.

Your match

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

Alanya
Best match
54match

Wins on prices and nightlife with your weighting.

Sorrento
49match

Wins on day trips 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

Sorrento in July

29 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
21 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
AlanyaSorrento

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.

Sorrento 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.

Sorrento's sunshine is measured 54 km from the centre, at Grazzanise.

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. Sorrento: 2005-2025 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Capri (17 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAlanyaSorrento
Official languageTurkishItalian
CurrencyTurkish Lira (TRY)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+3UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation10 m50 m
Main airportGazipaşa-Alanya Airport (GZP)38 km from centre22 non-stop destinationsNaples International Airport (NAP)30 km from centre131 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureAlanyaSorrento
City population364,18015,407
People per km²2281,541
Museums within 10 km26
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km05
Swim season, months above 21 °C7 months5 months

Where else could you go?

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