VacationSelector
The Old Port and Le Suquet, Cannes
CannesThe Old Port and Le Suquet
The Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco
San FranciscoThe Golden Gate Bridge

Photos: Cannes by qwesy qwesy, CC BY 3.0, cropped; San Francisco by Elijah Cobb, Pexels License.

Cannes or San Francisco?

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

  • beaches
  • day trips
  • prices

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

Choose San Francisco for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on San Francisco’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, San Francisco 25: Cannes leads by 55 points.
Food & drink. Cannes 55, San Francisco 82: San Francisco leads by 27 points.
Culture & sights. Cannes 38, San Francisco 68: San Francisco leads by 30 points.
Nightlife. Cannes 42, San Francisco 58: San Francisco leads by 16 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cannes 72, San Francisco 80: San Francisco leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Cannes 86, San Francisco 72: Cannes leads by 14 points.
Good for families. Cannes 56, San Francisco 66: San Francisco leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Cannes 68, San Francisco 70: San Francisco leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Cannes 60, San Francisco 58: Cannes leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Cannes 22, San Francisco 14: Cannes leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cannes 38, San Francisco 76: San Francisco leads by 38 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cannes and San Francisco are level on 42.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cannes and San Francisco.

Your match

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

Cannes
55match

Wins on beaches and day trips with your weighting.

San Francisco
Best match
59match

Wins on live music and the arts and culture and sights 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

San Francisco in July

22 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
13 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
CannesSan Francisco

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). San Francisco: 1981-2010 normals, Alameda Naval Air Station (9.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCannesSan Francisco
Official languageFrench-
CurrencyEuro (EUR)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation0 m16 m
Main airportNice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)20 km from centre130 non-stop destinationsSan Francisco International Airport (SFO)18 km from centre142 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCannesSan Francisco
City population74,350873,965
People per km²3,7931,455
Museums within 10 km1651
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
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 San Francisco 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

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.