VacationSelector
Lion's Head above Clifton Beach, Cape Town
Cape TownLion's Head above Clifton Beach
A cobbled street of painted houses in the old town, San Miguel de Allende
San Miguel de AllendeA cobbled street of painted houses in the old town

Photos: Cape Town by Stephan Louis, Pexels License; San Miguel de Allende by Russ Bowling, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Cape Town or San Miguel de Allende?

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
  • families

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

Choose San Miguel de Allende for

  • wellness
  • getting around
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on San Miguel de Allende’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, San Miguel de Allende 4: Cape Town leads by 54 points.
Food & drink. Cape Town 72, San Miguel de Allende 62: Cape Town leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Cape Town 60, San Miguel de Allende 62: San Miguel de Allende leads by 2 points.
Nightlife. Cape Town 60, San Miguel de Allende 38: Cape Town leads by 22 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cape Town 98, San Miguel de Allende 40: Cape Town leads by 58 points.
Day trips. Cape Town 68, San Miguel de Allende 77: San Miguel de Allende leads by 9 points.
Good for families. Cape Town 58, San Miguel de Allende 32: Cape Town leads by 26 points.
Getting around. Cape Town 35, San Miguel de Allende 48: San Miguel de Allende leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Cape Town 50, San Miguel de Allende 55: San Miguel de Allende leads by 5 points.
Affordability. Cape Town 72, San Miguel de Allende 50: Cape Town leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cape Town 52, San Miguel de Allende 40: Cape Town leads by 12 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cape Town 45, San Miguel de Allende 66: San Miguel de Allende leads by 21 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cape Town and San Miguel de Allende.

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.

San Miguel de Allende
48match

Wins on wellness and getting around 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

San Miguel de Allende in July

29 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
132 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
Cape TownSan Miguel de Allende

Where the figures come from

San Miguel de Allende's temperatures are measured 54 km from the centre, at Guanajuato, Gto..

San Miguel de Allende 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). San Miguel de Allende: 1991-2020 normals, Guanajuato, Gto. (53.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCape TownSan Miguel de Allende
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign LanguageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyRand (ZAR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC-6
Emergency number112911
Elevation5 m1,900 m
Main airportCape Town International Airport (CPT)18 km from centre45 non-stop destinationsGuanajuato International Airport (BJX)77 km from centre22 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureCape TownSan Miguel de Allende
City population3,776,31369,811
People per km²1,538-
Museums within 10 km222
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km32
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 San Miguel de Allende 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.