VacationSelector

Biarritz or San Sebastian?

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

Your match

Biarritz
38
match

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

San Sebastian
✓ Best match
51
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 Biarritz if the trip is built around swimming and sitting outside: 43 beaches within reach, a small town of 26,200 people, and warmer daytime highs through the year.

Choose San Sebastian if you want a walkable centre with far more to see on foot, a wider choice of kitchens, more places to drink in the evening, and more protected country within reach for day trips.

Scoreboard

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

BiarritzSan Sebastian
Beaches & swimming. Biarritz leads by 12 points.12
BiarritzSan Sebastian
Score6755
Swim season months22
Beaches 10 km4310
Coast distance1 km0 km
Water distance1 km0 km
Places to eat. San Sebastian leads by 23 points.23
BiarritzSan Sebastian
Score3255
Restaurants within 2 km of centre207472
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km1326
Museums & heritage. San Sebastian leads by 8 points.8
BiarritzSan Sebastian
Score3139
Museums within 10 km1617
Museums within 2 km of centre57
Share of museums within 2 km %3141
Unesco sites within 50 km23
Nightlife. San Sebastian leads by 25 points.25
BiarritzSan Sebastian
Score1540
Drinking venues within 4 km105388
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre82338
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7887
Nightclubs within 4 km612
Nature & day trips. San Sebastian leads by 26 points.26
BiarritzSan Sebastian
Score3056
Protected land share 50 km %611
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %6452
Park area within 2 km32 hectares70 hectares
Good for families. San Sebastian leads by 9 points.9
BiarritzSan Sebastian
Score2130
Tourist attractions within 2 km25
Park area within 2 km32 hectares70 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km11
Sights concentration. San Sebastian leads by 31 points.31
BiarritzSan Sebastian
Score2354
Notable places within 2 km1589
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. San Sebastian leads by 9 points.9
BiarritzSan Sebastian
Score6271
Price level global73.760.8
Daily budget€160€122
Year-round weather. Biarritz leads by 7 points.7
BiarritzSan Sebastian
Score6558
Monthly daytime high13.1 °C to 25.8 °C11.2 °C to 22.9 °C
Monthly rainfall97 mm to 224 mm92 mm to 203 mm
Dry months00
0255075100

Where they differ

Biarritz is the better base for time in the water: 43 beaches nearby against San Sebastian's 10, and the warmer of the two through the year, 13-26°C against 11-23°C.

San Sebastian is the better town on foot: many more notable places within walking distance, about twice as many restaurants near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens, and about three times as many places to drink. For day trips, 11% of the land around it is protected against 6% around Biarritz.

Where they are alike

Weather is where they are closest. Both follow the same Atlantic pattern, warmest in August, coolest in January, and rain in every month: neither has one at 40mm or less.

They are also close on heritage and on families. Each has about as many museums as the other, with UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach of both, 3 from San Sebastian against Biarritz's 2, and 1 theme park within reach of each.

Which traveller are you?

Swimmers and beach walkers: Biarritz. It has 43 beaches nearby against 10, warmer air through the year, and sea reaching 22°C in August, though that warm water lasts two months at either.

Anyone travelling to eat and to stay out late: San Sebastian, with about twice as many restaurants near the centre, a much wider range of kitchens, and roughly three times as many places to drink.

Families with children: San Sebastian again, with about three times as many attractions near the centre and twice as much park space, plus a centre dense enough to cover on foot. Each has 1 theme park within reach.

What the numbers don't tell you

The daily budget figures, €160 and €122, are national estimates for France and Spain, the price level for restaurants and hotels rather than a measurement of either town. A small resort and a heavily visited coastal city can each sit far from their own national average, so treat the gap as background rather than a reason to choose.

Biarritz's beach count works hardest in the two months when the sea reaches 21-22°C, which are also the months when a town of 26,200 people takes the most visitors. Outside that window the beaches remain, but the swimming largely does not.

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
Biarritz
13
14
16
18
21
23
25
26
24
21
16
14
San Sebastian
11
12
14
15
18
20
22
23
21
19
14
12
Sea temperature, °C
Biarritz
13
12
12
14
16
19
21
22
21
18
16
14
San Sebastian
13
12
13
14
16
19
21
22
21
18
16
14
Rainfall, mm
Biarritz
166
143
127
147
133
106
97
110
146
166
224
179
San Sebastian
151
125
119
126
122
96
92
109
117
155
203
153
Daylight, hours per day
Biarritz
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
San Sebastian
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Biarritz
3
3
5
5
6
6
7
7
6
4
3
2
San Sebastian
3
4
5
5
7
6
7
6
6
5
3
3

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Biarritz: 1991-2020 normals, San Sebastian / Fuenterrabia (24.4 km from centre). San Sebastian: 1991-2020 normals, San Sebastian / Igueldo (6.1 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Biarritz is at its best in July and August, with highs of 25-26°C, sea at 21-22°C and the year's driest stretch at 97-110mm. September holds 24°C but rain returns to 146mm.

San Sebastian runs cooler in the same window, 21-23°C from July to September, with the same sea and less rain in each of those months, 92mm in July and 117mm in September, which makes early autumn the steadier choice there. Both turn wet in November, past 200mm in Biarritz, and winter highs sit at 11-13°C.

Getting there

Flying fromBiarritzSan Sebastian
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 30 m
€129-164
BIQ · 3 km
1 h 30 m
€129-164
BIQ · 40 km
PalmaPMI
1 h 25 m
no fares
BIO · 111 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
BIO · 75 km
AmsterdamAMS
2 h 0 m
€196-210
1 stop
BIO · 111 km
2 h 0 m
€196-210
1 stop
BIO · 75 km
MunichMUC
2 h 10 m
€203-242
1 stop
BIO · 111 km
2 h 10 m
€203-242
1 stop
BIO · 75 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
2 h 0 m
no fares
BIO · 111 km
2 h 0 m
no fares
BIO · 75 km
MadridMAD
1 h 5 m
€76-169
EAS · 23 km
1 h 5 m
€76-169
EAS · 16 km
TenerifeTFS, TFN
3 h 10 m
no fares
BIO · 111 km
3 h 10 m
no fares
BIO · 75 km
AlicanteALC
1 h 20 m
€81-137
BIO · 111 km
1 h 20 m
€81-137
BIO · 75 km
MarrakechRAK
2 h 15 m
no fares
BIO · 111 km
2 h 15 m
no fares
BIO · 75 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
7 h 20 m
no fares
BIO · 111 km
7 h 20 m
no fares
BIO · 75 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

MeasureBiarritzSan Sebastian
Official languageFrenchSpanish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation0 m6 m
Main airportBiarritz Pays Basque airport (BIQ)3 km from centre24 non-stop destinationsSan Sebastián Airport (EAS)16 km from centre11 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureBiarritzSan Sebastian
City population26,206189,866
People per km²2,2403,118
Museums within 10 km814
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km23
Distinct cuisines in the centre2445
Swim season, months above 21 °C2 months2 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Biarritz or San Sebastian 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.