VacationSelector

Barcelona or Granada?

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

Your match

Barcelona
✓ Best match
71
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and nightlife with your weighting.

Granada
53
match

Wins on 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 Barcelona if you want the sea within reach of the city, late nights and a dense core you can walk, plus the wider choice of restaurants and museums.

Choose Granada if the point of the trip is the country around it, with far more protected land nearby, drier summers and warmer days, and you can do without a beach.

Scoreboard

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

BarcelonaGranada
Beaches & swimming. Barcelona leads by 65 points.65
BarcelonaGranada
Score650
Swim season months30
Beaches 10 km200
Coast distance2 km48 km
Water distance2 km—
Places to eat. Barcelona leads by 23 points.23
BarcelonaGranada
Score9067
Restaurants within 2 km of centre3,786872
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km4134
Museums & heritage. Barcelona leads by 20 points.20
BarcelonaGranada
Score6848
Museums within 10 km10528
Museums within 2 km of centre4926
Share of museums within 2 km %4793
Unesco sites within 50 km31
Nightlife. Barcelona leads by 30 points.30
BarcelonaGranada
Score8252
Drinking venues within 4 km2,711637
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre1,641494
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %6178
Nightclubs within 4 km24546
Nature & day trips. Granada leads by 13 points.13
BarcelonaGranada
Score5063
Protected land share 50 km %1027
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %5196
Park area within 2 km49 hectares46 hectares
Good for families. Barcelona leads by 9 points.9
BarcelonaGranada
Score6556
Tourist attractions within 2 km6060
Park area within 2 km49 hectares46 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km30
Sights concentration. Barcelona leads by 29 points.29
BarcelonaGranada
Score7344
Notable places within 2 km25850
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Barcelona and Granada are level on 71.
BarcelonaGranada
Score7171
Price level global60.860.8
Daily budget€122€122
Year-round weather. Barcelona leads by 4 points.4
BarcelonaGranada
Score7874
Monthly daytime high13.9 °C to 28.9 °C13.1 °C to 34.8 °C
Monthly rainfall27 mm to 83 mm0 mm to 51 mm
Dry months57
0255075100

Where they differ

Barcelona has 20 beaches nearby and three months when the sea sits at 21°C or more; Granada has no coast. It also has many times as many bars and clubs, many times as many notable places within walking distance, about three times as many museums, and a much larger field of restaurants.

Granada is the better base for getting out: 27% of the land around it is protected against 10% around Barcelona, and it runs warmer and drier, with more months at 40mm of rain or less.

Where they are alike

Both work across the year rather than in one season. January highs are 13-14°C, so winter is mild in each, and both record long sunshine totals, 2494 hours a year in Barcelona and 3002 in Granada.

They are also close on family appeal and on what is within reach outdoors: each has a similar number of tourist attractions near the centre and a similar amount of park space, so a day spent close to base looks the same in either.

Which traveller are you?

Anyone whose holiday needs swimming and late nights should take Barcelona: 20 beaches within reach, sea at 25°C in August, and many times more bars and clubs than Granada.

Walkers and day-trippers who want country rather than coast are better served by Granada, where 27% of the surrounding land is protected, though Barcelona still has the denser walking core.

Families with children who want variety close to base will find Barcelona easier: three theme parks within reach where Granada has none, plus beaches, against similar attractions and park space near both centres.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison here carries no information: the price level is a national figure applied to both cities, so it is identical by construction and says nothing about which is dearer. The €122 daily budget beside it is the same national estimate, not a measurement of either place.

Elsewhere, high numbers hide timing. Barcelona's beaches are strongest exactly when the city is fullest, and the months when the sea stays warm into autumn are also the wettest. Granada's driest, sunniest weeks are its hottest, at 35°C in July, which is why its own best months fall in spring and autumn.

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
Barcelona
14
14
16
19
22
26
28
29
26
22
18
15
Granada
13
15
18
20
25
31
35
34
29
24
17
14
Sea temperature, °C
Barcelona
14
13
13
14
17
21
24
25
24
21
17
15
Granada
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Barcelona
41
32
40
47
44
27
27
51
83
82
45
36
Granada
39
33
45
44
29
6
0
3
28
45
51
44
Daylight, hours per day
Barcelona
10
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Granada
10
11
12
13
14
15
14
14
13
11
10
10
Sunshine, hours per day
Barcelona
5
5
7
8
8
9
10
9
7
6
4
4
Granada
6
6
7
8
10
12
13
11
8
7
5
5

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Barcelona: 1991-2020 normals, Barcelona / Aeropuerto (14.4 km from centre). Granada: 1991-2020 normals, Granada / Caserío Hospicio (5 km from centre).

WorseBetter

In Barcelona, June and July are the strongest stretch, with highs of 26-28°C, sea at 21-24°C and rainfall down to 27mm. August brings the warmest water, 25°C. September and October keep the sea warm but carry the year's heaviest rain, 83mm and 82mm.

Granada is best in May and September, with highs of 25°C and 29°C and little rain. July and August reach 34-35°C with almost none, which suits some and not others; November and December are the wettest, around 51mm and 44mm.

Getting there

Flying fromBarcelonaGranada
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
2 h 0 m
€37-96
BCN · 13 km
2 h 40 m
€67-129
AGP · 97 km
AmsterdamAMS
2 h 10 m
€132-158
BCN · 13 km
2 h 55 m
€146-177
AGP · 97 km
BrusselsBRU, CRL
1 h 55 m
€77-116
BCN · 13 km
2 h 45 m
€110-142
1 stop
AGP · 97 km
MilanMXP, BGY, LIN
1 h 30 m
€33-92
BCN · 13 km
2 h 25 m
€61-88
AGP · 97 km
RomeFCO, CIA
1 h 40 m
€54-89
BCN · 13 km
2 h 30 m
€59-73
AGP · 97 km
DublinDUB
2 h 25 m
€79-116
BCN · 13 km
2 h 50 m
€122-139
1 stop
AGP · 97 km
PalmaPMI
55 m
€40-57
BCN · 13 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
GRX · 16 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 40 m
€79-101
BCN · 13 km
2 h 20 m
no fares
GRX · 16 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
7 h 55 m
€562-701
BCN · 13 km
7 h 35 m
no fares
AGP · 97 km
DohaDOH
6 h 25 m
€282-445
2 stops
BCN · 13 km
7 h 5 m
no fares
AGP · 97 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

MeasureBarcelonaGranada
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
Elevation9 m693 m
Main airportJosep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport (BCN)13 km from centre229 non-stop destinationsF.G.L. Airport Granada-Jaén Airport (GRX)16 km from centre12 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureBarcelonaGranada
City population1,731,649233,975
People per km²17,0942,659
Museums within 10 km9519
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km31
Distinct cuisines in the centre12862
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 Granada 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.