VacationSelector
The Château Grimaldi, home of the Musée Picasso, on the sea walls, Antibes
AntibesThe Château Grimaldi, home of the Musée Picasso, on the sea walls
The white medina above the harbour walls, Essaouira
EssaouiraThe white medina above the harbour walls

Photos: Antibes by Johan Allard, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Essaouira by Manel Cusido, Pexels License.

Antibes or Essaouira?

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 Antibes for

  • day trips
  • beaches
  • nightlife

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

Choose Essaouira for

  • prices
  • wellness
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Essaouira’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. Antibes 80, Essaouira 47: Antibes leads by 33 points.
Food & drink. Antibes 50, Essaouira 44: Antibes leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Antibes 42, Essaouira 48: Essaouira leads by 6 points.
Nightlife. Antibes 40, Essaouira 14: Antibes leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Antibes 70, Essaouira 57: Antibes leads by 13 points.
Day trips. Antibes 88, Essaouira 17: Antibes leads by 71 points.
Good for families. Antibes 55, Essaouira 42: Antibes leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Antibes 62, Essaouira 58: Antibes leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Antibes 35, Essaouira 44: Essaouira leads by 9 points.
Affordability. Antibes 30, Essaouira 74: Essaouira leads by 44 points.
Live music & performing arts. Antibes 35, Essaouira 28: Antibes leads by 7 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Antibes 40, Essaouira 66: Essaouira leads by 26 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Antibes and Essaouira.

Your match

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

Antibes
Best match
52match

Wins on day trips and beaches with your weighting.

Essaouira
45match

Wins on prices and wellness with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Antibes in July

28 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
13 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
24 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Essaouira in July

22 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
AntibesEssaouira

Where the figures come from

Essaouira 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. Antibes: 1991-2020 normals, Nice (9.9 km from centre). Essaouira: 1991-2020 normals, Essaouira (1.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAntibesEssaouira
Official languageFrenchArabic, Standard Moroccan Tamazight
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Moroccan Dirham (MAD)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzCE50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1
Emergency number112Police 19/112, ambulance 15, fire 15
Elevation0 m11 m
Main airportNice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)11 km from centre130 non-stop destinationsEssaouira-Mogador Airport (ESU)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureAntibesEssaouira
City population77,63782,962
People per km²2,93016,592
Museums within 10 km142
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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). 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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.