VacationSelector
The Old Port and Le Suquet, Cannes
CannesThe Old Port and Le Suquet
The white medina above the harbour walls, Essaouira
EssaouiraThe white medina above the harbour walls

Photos: Cannes by qwesy qwesy, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Essaouira by Manel Cusido, Pexels License.

Cannes or Essaouira?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Cannes for

  • day trips
  • beaches
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Cannes’s own page.

Choose Essaouira for

  • prices
  • wellness
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Essaouira’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Cannes 80, Essaouira 47: Cannes leads by 33 points.
Food & drink. Cannes 55, Essaouira 44: Cannes leads by 11 points.
Culture & sights. Cannes 38, Essaouira 48: Essaouira leads by 10 points.
Nightlife. Cannes 42, Essaouira 14: Cannes leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cannes 72, Essaouira 57: Cannes leads by 15 points.
Day trips. Cannes 86, Essaouira 17: Cannes leads by 69 points.
Good for families. Cannes 56, Essaouira 42: Cannes leads by 14 points.
Getting around. Cannes 68, Essaouira 58: Cannes leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Cannes 60, Essaouira 44: Cannes leads by 16 points.
Affordability. Cannes 22, Essaouira 74: Essaouira leads by 52 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cannes 38, Essaouira 28: Cannes leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cannes 42, Essaouira 66: Essaouira leads by 24 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cannes and Essaouira.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Cannes
Best match
55match

Wins on day trips and beaches with your weighting.

Essaouira
45match

Wins on prices and wellness with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Cannes in July

29 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
13 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
24 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Essaouira in July

22 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
CannesEssaouira

Where the figures come from

Essaouira has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cannes: 2004-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Cannes (5.8 km from centre). Essaouira: 1991-2020 normals, Essaouira (1.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCannesEssaouira
Official languageFrenchArabic, Standard Moroccan Tamazight
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Moroccan Dirham (MAD)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzCE50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1
Emergency number112Police 19/112, ambulance 15, fire 15
Elevation0 m11 m
Main airportNice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)20 km from centre130 non-stop destinationsEssaouira-Mogador Airport (ESU)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCannesEssaouira
City population74,35082,962
People per km²3,79316,592
Museums within 10 km162
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. 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. 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 figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.