VacationSelector

Alicante or Santiago de Compostela?

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

Your match

Alicante
✓ Best match
56
match

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

Santiago de Compostela
42
match

Wins on sights concentration and nature & day trips 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: it sits 1km from the centre, with warm water through the summer and the wider choice of restaurants and bars.

Choose Santiago de Compostela if you would rather walk a compact centre with the denser concentration of notable places, accept cooler, wetter days, and use the greener surroundings for day trips.

Scoreboard

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

AlicanteSantiago de Compostela
Beaches & swimming. Alicante leads by 77 points.77
AlicanteSantiago de Compostela
Score770
Swim season months50
Beaches 10 km330
Coast distance1 km26 km
Water distance1 km26 km
Places to eat. Alicante leads by 18 points.18
AlicanteSantiago de Compostela
Score6648
Restaurants within 2 km of centre867336
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km3123
Museums & heritage. Santiago de Compostela leads by 2 points.2
AlicanteSantiago de Compostela
Score4244
Museums within 10 km1416
Museums within 2 km of centre1114
Share of museums within 2 km %7988
Unesco sites within 50 km22
Nightlife. Alicante leads by 15 points.15
AlicanteSantiago de Compostela
Score5136
Drinking venues within 4 km591306
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre488268
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8388
Nightclubs within 4 km5413
Nature & day trips. Santiago de Compostela leads by 6 points.6
AlicanteSantiago de Compostela
Score4046
Protected land share 50 km %711
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %5992
Park area within 2 km60 hectares109 hectares
Good for families. Alicante leads by 15 points.15
AlicanteSantiago de Compostela
Score4227
Tourist attractions within 2 km132
Park area within 2 km60 hectares109 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km10
Sights concentration. Santiago de Compostela leads by 16 points.16
AlicanteSantiago de Compostela
Score2642
Notable places within 2 km1844
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Alicante and Santiago de Compostela are level on 71.
AlicanteSantiago de Compostela
Score7171
Price level global60.860.8
Daily budget€122€122
Year-round weather. Alicante leads by 25 points.25
AlicanteSantiago de Compostela
Score8762
Monthly daytime high17 °C to 31.1 °C11.3 °C to 25 °C
Monthly rainfall3 mm to 52 mm41 mm to 223 mm
Dry months110
0255075100

Where they differ

Alicante has 33 beaches nearby and the sea 1km from the centre; Santiago has none, with the coast 26km away. Alicante also runs warmer through the year, 17-31°C against 11-25°C, and has about three times as many restaurants near the centre and twice as many places to drink.

Santiago packs about twice as many notable places into walking distance of its centre, and sits in greener country: 11% of the land around it is protected against 7% around Alicante, and it has twice the park space near the centre.

Where they are alike

The two hold about the same number of museums, and each has 2 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, so heritage is a reason to visit either rather than a reason to pick one.

They are also close on nature and day trips: both have protected country around them and park space near the centre, though Santiago has more of each. Drinking venues in both sit mostly near the centre, so evenings are walkable wherever you stay.

Which traveller are you?

For swimming, only Alicante qualifies: beaches begin 1km from the centre and the sea holds 21°C or more for five months. Santiago's nearest coast is 26km off, with no beaches to speak of.

A visitor who travels for old streets and museums is better served in Santiago, where about twice as many notable places sit within walking distance of the centre; museum counts are similar in both, so the difference is density.

Families will find more to do in Alicante: many more attractions near the centre and 1 theme park within reach, where Santiago has none, though Santiago offers about twice the park space for quieter afternoons.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison between these two carries no information: the figure behind it is a national price level, identical for both by construction, and the €122 daily budget is a nationwide estimate rather than a measurement of either city.

Alicante's beach and weather advantage is seasonal in a way an annual figure hides: the sea reaches 21°C or more in only five of twelve months, so a spring trip gives warm days but cold water. Santiago's window is narrower still: outside July and August, rainfall climbs, so a shoulder-season visit there is a different trip from the same dates on the coast.

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
Santiago de Compostela
11
13
15
17
20
23
25
25
23
19
14
12
Sea temperature, °C
Alicante
15
14
15
16
18
22
25
26
25
22
19
16
Santiago de Compostela
14
13
13
14
15
16
17
17
17
16
15
14
Rainfall, mm
Alicante
21
18
25
34
21
8
3
12
52
32
34
23
Santiago de Compostela
217
149
153
136
116
61
41
61
91
208
223
222
Daylight, hours per day
Alicante
10
11
12
13
14
15
15
14
13
11
10
10
Santiago de Compostela
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Alicante
6
6
8
8
10
10
11
10
8
7
6
6
Santiago de Compostela
3
4
5
6
7
7
8
8
6
4
3
3

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Alicante: 1991-2020 normals, Alicante (2.8 km from centre). Santiago de Compostela: 1991-2020 normals, Santiago / Labacolla (8.4 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Alicante suits May and June, highs of 24-28°C with rain down to 8mm; midsummer is hotter, up to 31°C, with the warmest sea of the year. September is the one wet break in an otherwise dry run.

Santiago's window is July and August, its driest and warmest stretch, with 25°C days and 41-61mm of rain. The rest of the year is wet: November to January brings over 200mm a month, with highs of 11-14°C.

Getting there

Flying fromAlicanteSantiago de Compostela
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
2 h 25 m
€46-56
ALC · 10 km
2 h 0 m
no fares
SCQ · 10 km
BarcelonaBCN
1 h 10 m
€62-93
ALC · 10 km
1 h 40 m
€71-184
SCQ · 10 km
MadridMAD
1 h 5 m
€72-86
ALC · 10 km
1 h 15 m
€86-122
SCQ · 10 km
PalmaPMI
1 h 0 m
no fares
ALC · 10 km
1 h 50 m
no fares
SCQ · 10 km
TenerifeTFS, TFN
2 h 50 m
no fares
ALC · 10 km
2 h 50 m
no fares
SCQ · 10 km
SevillaSVQ
1 h 15 m
no fares
ALC · 10 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
SCQ · 10 km
BrusselsBRU, CRL
2 h 25 m
€102-119
1 stop
ALC · 10 km
2 h 15 m
no fares
SCQ · 10 km
MalagaAGP
1 h 15 m
€46-48
VLC · 127 km
1 h 35 m
no fares
SCQ · 10 km
AmsterdamAMS
2 h 35 m
€150-169
1 stop
ALC · 10 km
2 h 20 m
no fares
SCQ · 10 km
MarrakechRAK
1 h 50 m
no fares
ALC · 10 km
2 h 10 m
no fares
SCQ · 10 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

MeasureAlicanteSantiago de Compostela
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 m260 m
Main airportAlicante-Elche Miguel Hernández Airport (ALC)10 km from centre124 non-stop destinationsSantiago-Rosalía de Castro Airport (SCQ)10 km from centre27 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureAlicanteSantiago de Compostela
City population366,221100,965
People per km²1,819459
Museums within 10 km86
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km22
Distinct cuisines in the centre5238
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Alicante or Santiago de Compostela 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.