VacationSelector
The pastel houses of Rainbow Row, Charleston
CharlestonThe pastel houses of Rainbow Row
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: Charleston by NealVickers, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; San Miguel de Allende by Russ Bowling, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Charleston 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 Charleston for

  • beaches
  • families
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose San Miguel de Allende for

  • wellness
  • prices
  • 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. Charleston 72, San Miguel de Allende 4: Charleston leads by 68 points.
Food & drink. Charleston 72, San Miguel de Allende 62: Charleston leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Charleston 64, San Miguel de Allende 62: Charleston leads by 2 points.
Nightlife. Charleston 44, San Miguel de Allende 38: Charleston leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Charleston 55, San Miguel de Allende 40: Charleston leads by 15 points.
Day trips. Charleston 62, San Miguel de Allende 77: San Miguel de Allende leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Charleston 60, San Miguel de Allende 32: Charleston leads by 28 points.
Getting around. Charleston 46, San Miguel de Allende 48: San Miguel de Allende leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Charleston and San Miguel de Allende are level on 55.
Affordability. Charleston 27, San Miguel de Allende 50: San Miguel de Allende leads by 23 points.
Live music & performing arts. Charleston 42, San Miguel de Allende 40: Charleston leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Charleston 40, San Miguel de Allende 66: San Miguel de Allende leads by 26 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Charleston and San Miguel de Allende.

Your match

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

Charleston
Best match
53match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

San Miguel de Allende
48match

Wins on wellness 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.

Charleston in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
167 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
14 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

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
CharlestonSan 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. Charleston: 1991-2020 normals, Charleston Airport (16.1 km from centre). San Miguel de Allende: 1991-2020 normals, Guanajuato, Gto. (53.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCharlestonSan Miguel de Allende
Official language-Spanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation6 m1,900 m
Main airportCharleston International Airport (CHS)16 km from centre56 non-stop destinationsGuanajuato International Airport (BJX)77 km from centre22 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureCharlestonSan Miguel de Allende
City population150,22769,811
People per km²532-
Museums within 10 km192
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
Swim season, months above 21 °C6 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Charleston 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.