VacationSelector

Bilbao or Cadiz?

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

Your match

Bilbao
✓ Best match
54
match

Wins on nightlife and nature & day trips with your weighting.

Cadiz
49
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and year-round weather 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 Bilbao if the days are meant to end late: far more restaurants near the centre, many more bars and nightclubs, and more protected country around the city for walks and day trips.

Choose Cadiz if the sea is the point: 29 beaches nearby against Bilbao's 1, warmer days at 26-28°C in high summer, and a rainless June to August.

Scoreboard

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

BilbaoCadiz
Beaches & swimming. Cadiz leads by 39 points.39
BilbaoCadiz
Score3170
Swim season months13
Beaches 10 km129
Coast distance0 km0 km
Water distance0 km0 km
Places to eat. Bilbao leads by 18 points.18
BilbaoCadiz
Score6244
Restaurants within 2 km of centre840338
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km2618
Museums & heritage. Bilbao leads by 2 points.2
BilbaoCadiz
Score3836
Museums within 10 km2523
Museums within 2 km of centre1216
Share of museums within 2 km %4870
Unesco sites within 50 km10
Nightlife. Bilbao leads by 28 points.28
BilbaoCadiz
Score5830
Drinking venues within 4 km869241
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre730175
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8473
Nightclubs within 4 km506
Nature & day trips. Bilbao leads by 27 points.27
BilbaoCadiz
Score5326
Protected land share 50 km %114
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %7045
Park area within 2 km119 hectares24 hectares
Good for families. Cadiz leads by 7 points.7
BilbaoCadiz
Score4754
Tourist attractions within 2 km1780
Park area within 2 km119 hectares24 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km00
Sights concentration. Bilbao leads by 21 points.21
BilbaoCadiz
Score5231
Notable places within 2 km7923
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Bilbao and Cadiz are level on 71.
BilbaoCadiz
Score7171
Price level global60.860.8
Daily budget€122€122
Year-round weather. Cadiz leads by 13 points.13
BilbaoCadiz
Score7083
Monthly daytime high13.5 °C to 26.3 °C16.2 °C to 28 °C
Monthly rainfall53 mm to 170 mm0 mm to 89 mm
Dry months05
0255075100

Where they differ

Bilbao has roughly twice as many restaurants near the centre. It also has about three times as many places to drink, many more nightclubs, and about three times as many notable places within walking distance. Day trips are stronger too: 11% of the land around it is protected against 4% around Cadiz, plus far more park space in town.

Cadiz answers with the coast: 29 beaches nearby against Bilbao's 1, and three months when the sea reaches 21°C or more against Bilbao's one.

Where they are alike

Both hold a comparable number of museums, so the difference is placement, not quantity. Cadiz keeps its collections tightly around the centre; Bilbao spreads them wider but has 1 UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach, which Cadiz lacks.

Families are served differently but to a similar degree: Cadiz has many more tourist attractions near the centre, Bilbao far more park space, and neither has a theme park within reach. Both sit on the water, 0km from either centre.

Which traveller are you?

A family or couple whose holiday is built around swimming should choose Cadiz: 29 beaches near the centre rather than Bilbao's 1, a warmer sea for longer in summer, and plenty of attractions within walking distance.

Anyone travelling to eat and go out belongs in Bilbao, with far more restaurants near the centre, a wider spread of kitchens, and considerably more bars and nightclubs, most of them walkable from the middle of town.

Walkers who want countryside between city days should take Bilbao: 11% of the land around it is protected against 4% around Cadiz, with far more park space in town and a UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison here carries no information: it is a national price level, identical for both by construction, and the €122 daily budget beside it is one national estimate rather than a measurement of either city. Neither is the cheaper trip on this evidence.

Cadiz's beach strength is a summer strength: the sea only reaches 21°C or more in high summer, and its rainless June to August is also when 29 beaches take their heaviest use. Bilbao's steadier annual weather hides the same seasonality, since its wettest months sit either side of a short warm window, and its single beach carries whatever crowd arrives.

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
Bilbao
14
14
17
18
21
24
25
26
25
21
17
14
Cadiz
16
17
19
20
23
26
28
28
26
23
20
17
Sea temperature, °C
Bilbao
13
13
13
13
15
18
21
22
20
18
16
14
Cadiz
16
15
16
17
18
21
23
23
22
20
18
17
Rainfall, mm
Bilbao
131
108
98
96
76
58
54
53
75
112
170
124
Cadiz
62
52
54
43
32
6
0
2
29
76
89
73
Daylight, hours per day
Bilbao
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Cadiz
10
11
12
13
14
15
14
14
12
11
10
10
Sunshine, hours per day
Bilbao
3
3
5
5
6
6
6
6
5
4
3
3
Cadiz
6
7
8
9
11
12
12
11
9
8
6
5

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Bilbao: 1991-2020 normals, Bilbao / Sondica (4.1 km from centre). Cadiz: 1991-2020 normals, Cadiz Bay / Puntales (5.2 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Bilbao peaks from July to September: highs of 25-26°C, its driest weeks at around 53mm, and the sea at its warmest in August. Autumn turns wet, with 170mm in November, and winter days sit near 14°C.

Cadiz holds a longer season. June to August is close to rainless at 0-6mm, with highs of 26-28°C, and May and September still reach 23-26°C with under 32mm. Winter stays mild at 16-17°C, though October to December bring 73-89mm.

Getting there

Flying fromBilbaoCadiz
MadridMAD
1 h 0 m
no fares
BIO · 5 km
1 h 15 m
no fares
XRY · 31 km
BarcelonaBCN
1 h 15 m
€58-78
BIO · 5 km
1 h 40 m
no fares
XRY · 31 km
ValenciaVLC
1 h 15 m
€60-79
BIO · 5 km
1 h 15 m
€50-96
SVQ · 105 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 35 m
€102
BIO · 5 km
2 h 35 m
€83-157
TNG · 95 km
Santiago De CompostelaSCQ
1 h 10 m
no fares
BIO · 5 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
SVQ · 105 km
MalagaAGP
1 h 35 m
€77-114
BIO · 5 km
50 m
€69-82
TNG · 95 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 45 m
€62-91
BIO · 5 km
2 h 40 m
no fares
XRY · 31 km
PalmaPMI
1 h 25 m
no fares
BIO · 5 km
1 h 40 m
no fares
XRY · 31 km
AmsterdamAMS
2 h 0 m
€196-210
1 stop
BIO · 5 km
3 h 5 m
no fares
TNG · 95 km
MarrakechRAK
2 h 15 m
no fares
BIO · 5 km
1 h 30 m
no fares
SVQ · 105 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

MeasureBilbaoCadiz
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
Elevation19 m11 m
Main airportBilbao Airport (BIO)5 km from centre70 non-stop destinationsJerez Airport (XRY)31 km from centre23 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureBilbaoCadiz
City population351,124109,950
People per km²8,4409,087
Museums within 10 km1711
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Distinct cuisines in the centre5428
Swim season, months above 21 °C1 month3 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bilbao or Cadiz 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.