Cape Town or San Francisco?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on value for money and museums & heritage with your weighting.
Wins on nature & day trips and nightlife with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Cape Town and San Francisco are level on 60.
| Cape Town | San Francisco | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 60 | 60 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 29 | 44 |
| Coast distance | 1 km | 2 km |
| Water distance | 1 km | 2 km |
Places to eat. San Francisco leads by 16 points.16
| Cape Town | San Francisco | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 67 | 83 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 650 | 2,359 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 42 | 39 |
Museums & heritage. Cape Town leads by 10 points.10
| Cape Town | San Francisco | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 44 |
| Museums within 10 km | 25 | 57 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 20 | 29 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 80 | 51 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 3 | 0 |
Nightlife. San Francisco leads by 21 points.21
| Cape Town | San Francisco | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 47 | 68 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 483 | 1,434 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 389 | 928 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 81 | 65 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 47 | 97 |
Nature & day trips. San Francisco leads by 24 points.24
| Cape Town | San Francisco | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 36 | 60 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 6 | 17 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 4 |
| Land share of disc % | 42 | 57 |
| Park area within 2 km | 27 hectares | 45 hectares |
Good for families. San Francisco leads by 21 points.21
| Cape Town | San Francisco | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 36 | 57 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 19 | 48 |
| Park area within 2 km | 27 hectares | 45 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 1 |
Sights concentration. San Francisco leads by 18 points.18
| Cape Town | San Francisco | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 45 | 63 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 51 | 147 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Cape Town leads by 42 points.42
| Cape Town | San Francisco | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 85 | 43 |
| Price level global | 40.5 | 100 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Cape Town leads by 8 points.8
| Cape Town | San Francisco | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 86 | 78 |
| Monthly daytime high | 18 °C to 27.5 °C | 14 °C to 23.2 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 10 mm to 97 mm | 0 mm to 105 mm |
| Dry months | 6 | 7 |
When should you go?
The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cape Town: 1991-2020 normals, Cape Town Airport (17.5 km from centre). San Francisco: 1981-2010 normals, Alameda Naval Air Station (9.1 km from centre).
Getting there
| Flying from | Cape Town | San Francisco |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 12 h 5 m €634-815 CPT · 18 km | 10 h 50 m no fares SFO · 18 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 15 h 25 m no fares CPT · 18 km | 5 h 35 m €286-328 1 stop SFO · 18 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 11 h 45 m €632-724 1 stop CPT · 18 km | 11 h 25 m no fares SFO · 18 km |
| AtlantaATL, PDK | 16 h 5 m no fares CPT · 18 km | 4 h 40 m no fares SFO · 18 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 11 h 40 m €742-801 2 stops CPT · 18 km | 11 h 15 m no fares SFO · 18 km |
| WashingtonIAD, DCA | 15 h 40 m no fares CPT · 18 km | 5 h 15 m €252-262 1 stop SFO · 18 km |
| MunichMUC | 11 h 30 m no fares CPT · 18 km | 11 h 45 m no fares SFO · 18 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 9 h 40 m €611-615 1 stop CPT · 18 km | 16 h 0 m €1,005-1027 1 stop SFO · 18 km |
| SingaporeSIN, XSP | 12 h 0 m no fares CPT · 18 km | 16 h 40 m no fares SFO · 18 km |
| ZurichZRH | 11 h 25 m no fares CPT · 18 km | 11 h 40 m no fares SFO · 18 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 2026-09 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
| Measure | Cape Town | San Francisco |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | English, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign Language | – |
| Currency | Rand (ZAR) | US Dollar (USD) |
| Sockets | CMN230 V, 50 Hz | AB120 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Left | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+2 | UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 911 |
| Elevation | 5 m | 16 m |
| Main airport | Cape Town International Airport (CPT)18 km from centre44 non-stop destinations | San Francisco International Airport (SFO)18 km from centre142 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 12 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Cape Town | San Francisco |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 3,776,313 | 873,965 |
| People per km² | 1,538 | 1,455 |
| Museums within 10 km | 22 | 50 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 3 | 0 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 65 | 108 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | None | None |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cape Town or San Francisco somewhere new.