Antalya or Paphos?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on nightlife and value for money with your weighting.
Wins on year-round weather and beaches & swimming 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 Antalya if you want busy evenings and a base with more to do beyond the city, with protected countryside and theme parks within reach, and a hotter summer peaking at 35°C.
Choose Paphos if you want an even climate and a wider choice of beaches, 27 of them close by, with dry months running from spring into autumn and quiet nights.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Paphos leads by 7 points.7
| Antalya | Paphos | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 72 | 79 |
| Swim season months | 7 | 6 |
| Beaches 10 km | 11 | 27 |
| Coast distance | 1 km | 1 km |
| Water distance | 1 km | 1 km |
Places to eat. Antalya leads by 1 points.1
| Antalya | Paphos | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 45 | 44 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 638 | 251 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 11 | 22 |
Museums & heritage. Antalya leads by 3 points.3
| Antalya | Paphos | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 25 | 22 |
| Museums within 10 km | 11 | 8 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 8 | 3 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 73 | 38 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 0 | 2 |
Nightlife. Antalya leads by 29 points.29
| Antalya | Paphos | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 59 | 30 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 917 | 224 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 516 | 161 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 56 | 72 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 55 | 11 |
Nature & day trips. Antalya leads by 18 points.18
| Antalya | Paphos | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 41 | 23 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 8 | 2 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 69 | 33 |
| Park area within 2 km | 69 hectares | 27 hectares |
Good for families. Paphos leads by 2 points.2
| Antalya | Paphos | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 40 | 42 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 6 | 30 |
| Park area within 2 km | 69 hectares | 27 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 5 | 0 |
Sights concentration. Antalya leads by 8 points.8
| Antalya | Paphos | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 27 | 19 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 19 | 12 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Antalya leads by 19 points.19
| Antalya | Paphos | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 89 | 70 |
| Price level global | 35.2 | 61.4 |
| Daily budget | €100 | €129 |
Year-round weather. Paphos leads by 15 points.15
| Antalya | Paphos | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 71 | 86 |
| Monthly daytime high | 15.3 °C to 34.8 °C | 17 °C to 30.8 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 2 mm to 273 mm | 0 mm to 98 mm |
| Dry months | 4 | 8 |
Where they differ
Antalya has many times as many bars and nightclubs, about half of them near the centre. It also gives more scope for days out: 8% of the land around it is protected against 2% around Paphos, with far more park space near the centre. Turkey's national daily estimate is €100 against Cyprus's €129.
Paphos is milder and drier, with highs of 17-31°C across the year against Antalya's 15-35°C, and twice as many months at 40mm of rain or less. It has 27 beaches nearby, more than twice Antalya's count.
Where they are alike
Neither is a food city first. Antalya has about three times as many restaurants near the centre; Paphos spreads its choice across a wider range of kitchens.
Families and heritage land in similar places. Both offer ways to fill a day with children, Paphos through attractions near the centre, Antalya through park space and 5 theme parks within reach. Museums are thin in both, though Paphos has 2 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach.
Which traveller are you?
If evenings matter, Antalya. It has many times as many bars and clubs, about half of them near the centre, and about twice as many notable places within walking distance of it, so a night out needs little planning.
For swimming, Paphos has 27 beaches nearby, more than twice Antalya's count, with the sea 1km from both centres. Antalya's water stays at 21°C or more for 7 months of the year, a month longer than Paphos's.
Travelling with children, either works. Paphos concentrates its attractions near the centre, which suits short days; Antalya answers with more park space and 5 theme parks within reach.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €100 for Turkey and €129 for Cyprus, are national estimates of restaurant and hotel price levels, not measurements of Antalya or Paphos. A heavily visited coastal city can sit a long way from its own country's average, by more than the gap between these two numbers, so they cannot tell you which trip will cost more.
No weather station near Paphos records sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low, and its monthly picture rests on temperature, rainfall and sea temperature alone. Its beach count also says nothing about how full those beaches get in August.
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.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Antalya: 1991-2020 normals, Antalya (23.4 km from centre). Paphos: 1991-2020 normals, Paphos Airport (8.4 km from centre).
Antalya is at its best in May, with highs of 26°C, 41mm of rain and the sea at 21°C, and again in September, when the sea holds 28°C. July and August reach 35°C, and the winter is wet, with 273mm in December.
Paphos holds its shape at both ends of the year. April to June and October stay dry, October pairing 27°C with 14mm of rain and a sea at 25°C, and its winter rain stays well below Antalya's.
Getting there
| Flying from | Antalya | Paphos |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 4 h 5 m €125-143 AYT · 9 km | 4 h 25 m €125-167 PFO · 8 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 1 h 15 m €53-68 AYT · 9 km | 1 h 35 m no fares ECN · 107 km |
| ManchesterMAN | 4 h 20 m €173-185 AYT · 9 km | 4 h 40 m no fares PFO · 8 km |
| CologneCGN | 3 h 30 m €164-202 AYT · 9 km | 3 h 50 m €184-195 1 stop PFO · 8 km |
| BirminghamBHX | 4 h 15 m €178-213 AYT · 9 km | 4 h 35 m no fares PFO · 8 km |
| WarsawWAW, WMI | 2 h 50 m €147-160 AYT · 9 km | 3 h 10 m €123-135 PFO · 8 km |
| KatowiceKTW | 2 h 45 m €200-201 AYT · 9 km | 3 h 5 m no fares PFO · 8 km |
| ViennaVIE | 2 h 40 m €144-173 AYT · 9 km | 3 h 0 m €206-323 1 stop PFO · 8 km |
| DusseldorfDUS, NRN | 3 h 35 m €145-183 AYT · 9 km | 4 h 0 m no fares LCA · 110 km |
| AlmatyALA | 5 h 20 m €280-315 1 stop AYT · 9 km | 5 h 10 m €377-465 2 stops LCA · 110 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
| Measure | Antalya | Paphos |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Turkish | Turkish, Greek, Modern Greek |
| Currency | Turkish Lira (TRY) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CF230 V, 50 Hz | G240 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Left |
| Time zone | UTC+3 | UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 |
| Elevation | 30 m | 72 m |
| Main airport | Antalya International Airport (AYT)9 km from centre33 non-stop destinations | Paphos International Airport (PFO)8 km from centre57 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 14 days | 17 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Antalya | Paphos |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 2,426,356 | 35,961 |
| People per km² | 1,712 | 1,987 |
| Museums within 10 km | 5 | 4 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 0 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 22 | 36 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 7 months | 6 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Antalya or Paphos somewhere new.