VacationSelector

Alicante or Madrid?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Alicante
56
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and year-round weather with your weighting.

Madrid
✓ Best match
66
match

Wins on sights concentration and good for families with your weighting.

What matters to you?

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

The verdict

Choose Alicante if the sea matters: 33 beaches within reach and five months warm enough to swim, with mild winters when Madrid is cold.

Choose Madrid if you want a city covered on foot: many more museums, restaurants and bars near the centre, more for children to do, and more protected land within day-trip reach.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

AlicanteMadrid
Beaches & swimming. Alicante leads by 77 points.77
AlicanteMadrid
Score770
Swim season months50
Beaches 10 km334
Coast distance1 km305 km
Water distance1 km—
Places to eat. Madrid leads by 17 points.17
AlicanteMadrid
Score6683
Restaurants within 2 km of centre8673,508
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km3128
Museums & heritage. Madrid leads by 33 points.33
AlicanteMadrid
Score4275
Museums within 10 km1497
Museums within 2 km of centre1159
Share of museums within 2 km %7961
Unesco sites within 50 km24
Nightlife. Madrid leads by 30 points.30
AlicanteMadrid
Score5181
Drinking venues within 4 km5912,414
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre4881,498
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8362
Nightclubs within 4 km54341
Nature & day trips. Madrid leads by 23 points.23
AlicanteMadrid
Score4063
Protected land share 50 km %719
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %59100
Park area within 2 km60 hectares187 hectares
Good for families. Madrid leads by 35 points.35
AlicanteMadrid
Score4277
Tourist attractions within 2 km1361
Park area within 2 km60 hectares187 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km13
Sights concentration. Madrid leads by 49 points.49
AlicanteMadrid
Score2675
Notable places within 2 km18288
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Alicante and Madrid are level on 71.
AlicanteMadrid
Score7171
Price level global60.860.8
Daily budget€122€122
Year-round weather. Alicante leads by 15 points.15
AlicanteMadrid
Score8772
Monthly daytime high17 °C to 31.1 °C10 °C to 32.7 °C
Monthly rainfall3 mm to 52 mm9 mm to 64 mm
Dry months117
0255075100

Where they differ

Alicante has 33 beaches nearby against Madrid's 4, and five months when the sea reaches 21°C or more, peaking at 26°C. Madrid has no swimming season at all.

Madrid puts many times as many notable places within walking distance of its centre, so sightseeing days involve less travelling. Families get many more attractions near the centre, far more park space, and 3 theme parks within reach against Alicante's 1. It also has many times as many museums, and more restaurants and bars close to the middle.

Where they are alike

Both are sunny, hot-summer places. Highs reach 31°C in Alicante and 33°C in Madrid, midsummer rain drops to 10mm or less in each, and both get well over 2500 hours of sun a year.

They also converge on eating and on days out. The range of kitchens is similar in both, and each has protected land and parks within reach for a change of scene, though Madrid has more of both.

Which traveller are you?

Someone who wants to swim should take Alicante: 33 beaches, sea at 21°C or above for five months, and winter highs near 17°C for off-season sun.

A city break built on museums and late nights points to Madrid, with many times as many museums and drinking places near the centre, and 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Alicante's 2.

Families are better served in Madrid, with many more attractions near the centre, far more park space and more theme parks within reach, though Alicante answers if the holiday is built around the beach.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison between these two carries no information: it is a national price level, identical for both by construction. The daily budget of €122 is one national estimate rather than a measurement of either city, so neither can be called the cheaper trip here.

Alicante's beach strength and its best weather fall in the same months, so the sea is warmest exactly when the coast is busiest, and September pairs a 25°C sea with the year's heaviest rain. Madrid's 4 beaches are not coast, and its summer heat of 33°C arrives when its walking, museum and nightlife strengths are hardest to use.

When should you go?

The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure 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
Alicante
17
18
20
22
24
28
30
31
29
25
21
18
Madrid
10
12
16
19
23
29
33
32
27
20
14
10
Sea temperature, °C
Alicante
15
14
15
16
18
22
25
26
25
22
19
16
Madrid
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Alicante
21
18
25
34
21
8
3
12
52
32
34
23
Madrid
32
34
35
46
49
20
9
10
24
64
53
42
Daylight, hours per day
Alicante
10
11
12
13
14
15
15
14
13
11
10
10
Madrid
10
11
12
13
14
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Alicante
6
6
8
8
10
10
11
10
8
7
6
6
Madrid
5
5
7
8
9
11
12
11
9
6
5
4

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Alicante: 1991-2020 normals, Alicante (2.8 km from centre). Madrid: 1991-2020 normals, Madrid (1.7 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Alicante suits the longer season. From May to October highs run 24-29°C and the sea sits at 21°C or above; only September turns properly wet, at 52mm. Winters stay usable, with days near 17°C.

Madrid is at its best in June and September, warm at 27-29°C without the midsummer peak of 33°C. Spring and autumn carry more rain than the same months on the coast, and winter days reach only 10°C, which makes a walking-heavy trip harder work.

Getting there

Flying fromAlicanteMadrid
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
2 h 25 m
€46-56
ALC · 10 km
2 h 10 m
€52-105
MAD · 14 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
2 h 5 m
€85-109
ALC · 10 km
1 h 55 m
€95-123
MAD · 14 km
BarcelonaBCN
1 h 10 m
€62-93
ALC · 10 km
1 h 15 m
€116-130
1 stop
MAD · 14 km
PalmaPMI
1 h 0 m
no fares
ALC · 10 km
1 h 20 m
€56-238
MAD · 14 km
BrusselsBRU, CRL
2 h 25 m
€102-119
1 stop
ALC · 10 km
2 h 15 m
€99-166
MAD · 14 km
AmsterdamAMS
2 h 35 m
€150-169
1 stop
ALC · 10 km
2 h 25 m
€175-213
MAD · 14 km
ManchesterMAN
2 h 40 m
no fares
ALC · 10 km
2 h 20 m
no fares
MAD · 14 km
TenerifeTFS, TFN
2 h 50 m
no fares
ALC · 10 km
2 h 50 m
€109-153
MAD · 14 km
MarrakechRAK
1 h 50 m
no fares
ALC · 10 km
1 h 55 m
no fares
MAD · 14 km
MontrealYUL, YHU, YMX
7 h 30 m
no fares
VLC · 127 km
7 h 10 m
no fares
MAD · 14 km

The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-08 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.

Before you go

MeasureAlicanteMadrid
Official languageSpanishSpanish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation3 m663 m
Main airportAlicante-Elche Miguel Hernández Airport (ALC)10 km from centre124 non-stop destinationsAdolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport (MAD)14 km from centre236 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureAlicanteMadrid
City population366,2213,506,730
People per km²1,8195,801
Museums within 10 km888
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km24
Distinct cuisines in the centre52106
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 months–

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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). 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. 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.