VacationSelector

Bilbao or Doha?

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

The Guggenheim Museum on the river, Bilbao
Bilbao

Photo: José Ligero Loarte, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped

A dhow below the towers of West Bay, Doha
Doha

Photo: Gregory Hawken Kramer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped

Your match

Bilbao
✓ Best match
59
match

Wins on day trips and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Doha
38
match

Wins on shopping and families 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.

BilbaoDoha
Beaches & swimming. Bilbao and Doha are level on 45.
Food & drink. Bilbao leads by 26 points.26
Culture & sights. Bilbao leads by 7 points.7
Nightlife. Bilbao leads by 34 points.34
Nature & outdoors. Bilbao leads by 68 points.68
Day trips. Bilbao leads by 73 points.73
Good for families. Doha leads by 5 points.5
Getting around. Bilbao leads by 34 points.34
Shopping & style. Doha leads by 13 points.13
Affordability. Bilbao leads by 6 points.6
Live music & performing arts. Bilbao leads by 23 points.23
Wellness & relaxation. Doha leads by 5 points.5
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bilbao and Doha.

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
JulyBilbaoDoha
Daytime high25 °C43 °C
Night-time low16 °C33 °C
Rainfall in the month54 mm0 mm
Sunshine6 hours a dayNo figure
Sea temperature21 °C33 °C
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
Bilbao
14
14
17
18
21
24
25
26
25
21
17
14
Doha
23
24
29
33
40
43
43
42
39
36
30
25
Sea temperature, °C
Bilbao
13
13
13
13
15
18
21
22
20
18
16
14
Doha
20
19
21
24
28
30
33
34
33
31
27
23
Rainfall, mm
Bilbao
131
108
98
96
76
58
54
53
75
112
170
124
Doha
11
11
19
4
2
0
0
0
0
1
7
19
Daylight, hours per day
Bilbao
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Doha
11
11
12
13
13
14
14
13
12
12
11
11
Sunshine, hours per day
Bilbao
3
3
5
5
6
6
6
6
5
4
3
3
Doha
No sunshine record

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Bilbao: 1991-2020 normals, Bilbao / Sondica (4.1 km from centre). Doha: 1991-2020 normals, Doha International Airport (5.5 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromBilbaoDoha
MadridMAD
1 h 0 m
no fares
BIO · 5 km
6 h 55 m
no fares
DOH · 8 km
BarcelonaBCN
1 h 15 m
€58-78
BIO · 5 km
6 h 25 m
no fares
DOH · 8 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 45 m
€62-91
BIO · 5 km
6 h 50 m
no fares
DOH · 8 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
3 h 45 m
€192-214
BIO · 5 km
3 h 55 m
€321-368
DOH · 8 km
MalagaAGP
1 h 35 m
€77-114
BIO · 5 km
7 h 5 m
no fares
DOH · 8 km
AmsterdamAMS
2 h 0 m
€196-210
1 stop
BIO · 5 km
6 h 30 m
no fares
DOH · 8 km
MunichMUC
2 h 10 m
€203-242
1 stop
BIO · 5 km
5 h 45 m
no fares
DOH · 8 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
2 h 0 m
no fares
BIO · 5 km
6 h 5 m
no fares
DOH · 8 km
MarrakechRAK
2 h 15 m
no fares
BIO · 5 km
7 h 30 m
no fares
DOH · 8 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
7 h 20 m
no fares
BIO · 5 km
13 h 20 m
no fares
DOH · 8 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

MeasureBilbaoDoha
Official languageSpanishArabic
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Qatari Rial (QAR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzG240 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+3
Emergency number112999
Elevation19 m0 m
Main airportBilbao Airport (BIO)5 km from centre73 non-stop destinationsHamad International Airport (DOH)8 km from centre195 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days-

By the numbers

MeasureBilbaoDoha
City population351,1241,186,023
People per km²8,4408,985
Museums within 10 km176
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C1 month9 months

Where else could you go?

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