VacationSelector
Lion's Head above Clifton Beach, Cape Town
Cape TownLion's Head above Clifton Beach
Portofino and its bay from the hillside, Portofino
PortofinoPortofino and its bay from the hillside

Photos: Cape Town by Stephan Louis, Pexels License; Portofino by Michal Osmenda, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Cape Town or Portofino?

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

  • prices
  • nightlife
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Portofino for

  • getting around
  • day trips
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Portofino’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, Portofino 60: Portofino leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Cape Town 72, Portofino 36: Cape Town leads by 36 points.
Culture & sights. Cape Town 60, Portofino 22: Cape Town leads by 38 points.
Nightlife. Cape Town 60, Portofino 14: Cape Town leads by 46 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cape Town 98, Portofino 77: Cape Town leads by 21 points.
Day trips. Cape Town 68, Portofino 76: Portofino leads by 8 points.
Good for families. Cape Town 58, Portofino 33: Cape Town leads by 25 points.
Getting around. Cape Town 35, Portofino 50: Portofino leads by 15 points.
Shopping & style. Cape Town 50, Portofino 29: Cape Town leads by 21 points.
Affordability. Cape Town 72, Portofino 9: Cape Town leads by 63 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cape Town 52, Portofino 7: Cape Town leads by 45 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cape Town 45, Portofino 42: Cape Town leads by 3 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cape Town and Portofino.

Your match

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

Cape Town
Best match
61match

Wins on prices and nightlife with your weighting.

Portofino
38match

Wins on getting around and day trips 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

Portofino in July

27 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
32 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
24 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Cape TownPortofino

Where the figures come from

Portofino's temperatures are measured 31 km from the centre, at Genova / Sestri.

Portofino 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). Portofino: 1991-2020 normals, Genova / Sestri (31 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCape TownPortofino
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign LanguageItalian
CurrencyRand (ZAR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation5 m20 m
Main airportCape Town International Airport (CPT)18 km from centre45 non-stop destinationsGenoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport (GOA)32 km from centre25 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCape TownPortofino
City population3,776,313355
People per km²1,538142
Museums within 10 km2214
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km32
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cape Town or Portofino 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.