VacationSelector
Lion's Head above Clifton Beach, Cape Town
Cape TownLion's Head above Clifton Beach
The colonnaded court of Luxor Temple, Luxor
LuxorThe colonnaded court of Luxor Temple

Photos: Cape Town by Stephan Louis, Pexels License; Luxor by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Cape Town or Luxor?

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 Cape Town for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches
  • nightlife

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

Choose Luxor for

  • culture and sights
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Luxor’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. Cape Town 58, Luxor 6: Cape Town leads by 52 points.
Food & drink. Cape Town 72, Luxor 30: Cape Town leads by 42 points.
Culture & sights. Cape Town 60, Luxor 95: Luxor leads by 35 points.
Nightlife. Cape Town 60, Luxor 10: Cape Town leads by 50 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cape Town 98, Luxor 32: Cape Town leads by 66 points.
Day trips. Cape Town 68, Luxor 62: Cape Town leads by 6 points.
Good for families. Cape Town 58, Luxor 30: Cape Town leads by 28 points.
Getting around. Cape Town and Luxor are level on 35.
Shopping & style. Cape Town 50, Luxor 25: Cape Town leads by 25 points.
Affordability. Cape Town 72, Luxor 90: Luxor leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cape Town 52, Luxor 10: Cape Town leads by 42 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cape Town 45, Luxor 28: Cape Town leads by 17 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cape Town and Luxor.

Your match

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

Cape Town
Best match
61match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and beaches with your weighting.

Luxor
38match

Wins on culture and sights and prices with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Cape Town in July

18 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
89 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
15 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Luxor in July

41 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
Cape TownLuxor

Where the figures come from

Luxor 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. Cape Town: 1991-2020 normals, Cape Town Airport (17.5 km from centre). Luxor: 1998-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Luxor (6.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCape TownLuxor
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign LanguageArabic
CurrencyRand (ZAR)Egyptian Pound (EGP)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number112Police 122, ambulance 123, fire 180
Elevation5 m89 m
Main airportCape Town International Airport (CPT)18 km from centre45 non-stop destinationsLuxor International Airport (LXR)7 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureCape TownLuxor
City population3,776,313202,232
People per km²1,538486
Museums within 10 km224
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km31
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cape Town or Luxor 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). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.

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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.