VacationSelector

Barcelona or Cairo?

Two destinations compared in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

The Sagrada Família, Barcelona
Barcelona

Photo: Canaan, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped

The pyramids of Giza, Cairo
Cairo

Photo: Ricardo Liberato, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped

Your match

Barcelona
✓ Best match
72
match

Wins on beaches and getting around with your weighting.

Cairo
50
match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

What matters to you?

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

Scoreboard

Our verdict on each category, scored 0 to 100 against fixed benchmark cities.

BarcelonaCairo
Beaches & swimming. Barcelona leads by 65 points.65
Food & drink. Barcelona leads by 22 points.22
Culture & sights. Cairo leads by 10 points.10
Nightlife. Barcelona leads by 34 points.34
Nature & outdoors. Barcelona leads by 42 points.42
Day trips. Barcelona leads by 14 points.14
Good for families. Barcelona leads by 44 points.44
Getting around. Barcelona leads by 45 points.45
Shopping & style. Barcelona leads by 17 points.17
Affordability. Cairo leads by 51 points.51
Live music & performing arts. Barcelona leads by 20 points.20
Wellness & relaxation. Barcelona leads by 23 points.23
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Barcelona and Cairo.

When should you go?

Pick the month you can travel and see both cities side by side. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Climate figures for July
JulyBarcelonaCairo
Daytime high28 °C36 °C
Night-time low21 °C23 °C
Rainfall in the month27 mm0 mm
Sunshine10 hours a day12 hours a day
Sea temperature24 °CNo sea
Daylight15 hours a day14 hours a day

The whole year

Each row is shaded against that destination’s own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that figure 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
Barcelona
14
14
16
19
22
26
28
29
26
22
18
15
Cairo
19
21
24
29
33
35
36
36
34
30
26
21
Sea temperature, °C
Barcelona
14
13
13
14
17
21
24
25
24
21
17
15
Cairo
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Barcelona
41
32
40
47
44
27
27
51
83
82
45
36
Cairo
6
5
10
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
7
Daylight, hours per day
Barcelona
10
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Cairo
10
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
12
11
10
Sunshine, hours per day
Barcelona
5
5
7
8
8
9
10
9
7
6
4
4
Cairo
7
7
9
9
11
11
12
11
10
10
9
7

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Barcelona: 1991-2020 normals, Barcelona / Aeropuerto (14.4 km from centre). Cairo: 1991-2020 normals, Helwan (21.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromBarcelonaCairo
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
2 h 0 m
€37-96
BCN · 13 km
4 h 50 m
€240-288
CAI · 17 km
MilanMXP, BGY, LIN
1 h 30 m
€33-92
BCN · 13 km
3 h 45 m
€147-173
CAI · 17 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 40 m
€79-101
BCN · 13 km
4 h 25 m
€249-480
CAI · 17 km
RomeFCO, CIA
1 h 40 m
€54-89
BCN · 13 km
3 h 10 m
€280-302
CAI · 17 km
MadridMAD
1 h 15 m
€114-118
BCN · 13 km
4 h 35 m
€274-412
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
3 h 15 m
€173-293
BCN · 13 km
2 h 10 m
€154-167
CAI · 17 km
JeddahJED
5 h 30 m
no fares
BCN · 13 km
2 h 5 m
€158-202
CAI · 17 km
Kuwait CityKWI
5 h 45 m
no fares
BCN · 13 km
2 h 35 m
€137-145
CAI · 17 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
7 h 55 m
€562-701
BCN · 13 km
11 h 15 m
€624-1013
1 stop
CAI · 17 km
BeijingPEK, PKX
11 h 0 m
no fares
BCN · 13 km
9 h 30 m
€644-746
1 stop
CAI · 17 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

MeasureBarcelonaCairo
Official languageSpanishArabic
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Egyptian Pound (EGP)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number112Police 122, ambulance 123, fire 180
Elevation9 m23 m
Main airportJosep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport (BCN)13 km from centre235 non-stop destinationsCairo International Airport (CAI)17 km from centre127 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureBarcelonaCairo
City population1,731,6499,801,536
People per km²17,09418,564
Museums within 10 km9548
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km32
Swim season, months above 21 °C3 months-

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination

Sources

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.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate and flight figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-27. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.