VacationSelector
Cocoa Beach Pier behind yellow parasols, Cocoa Beach
Cocoa BeachCocoa Beach Pier behind yellow parasols
The Winchester Mystery House, San Jose
San JoseThe Winchester Mystery House

Photos: Cocoa Beach by Benoît Prieur, CC0; San Jose by Roxanna Salceda, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Cocoa Beach or San Jose?

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 Cocoa Beach for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • families

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

Choose San Jose for

  • shopping
  • day trips
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on San Jose’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. Cocoa Beach 80, San Jose 30: Cocoa Beach leads by 50 points.
Food & drink. Cocoa Beach 32, San Jose 56: San Jose leads by 24 points.
Culture & sights. Cocoa Beach 12, San Jose 36: San Jose leads by 24 points.
Nightlife. Cocoa Beach 27, San Jose 33: San Jose leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cocoa Beach 62, San Jose 72: San Jose leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Cocoa Beach 52, San Jose 78: San Jose leads by 26 points.
Good for families. Cocoa Beach 72, San Jose 65: Cocoa Beach leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Cocoa Beach 22, San Jose 30: San Jose leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Cocoa Beach 20, San Jose 48: San Jose leads by 28 points.
Affordability. Cocoa Beach 40, San Jose 20: Cocoa Beach leads by 20 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cocoa Beach 14, San Jose 38: San Jose leads by 24 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cocoa Beach and San Jose are level on 30.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cocoa Beach and San Jose.

Your match

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

Cocoa Beach
39match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

San Jose
Best match
45match

Wins on shopping 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.

Cocoa Beach in July

30 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
147 mmrain in the month
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

San Jose in July

27 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
14 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Cocoa BeachSan Jose

Where the figures come from

Cocoa Beach 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. Cocoa Beach: 1961-1990 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Cocoa / Patrick Air Force Base (11.2 km from centre). San Jose: 1991-2020 normals, San Jose / Santa Clara Trailer Village (8.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCocoa BeachSan Jose
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation0 m25 m
Main airportOrlando International Airport (MCO)68 km from centre170 non-stop destinationsMineta San Jose International Airport (SJC)8 km from centre38 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCocoa BeachSan Jose
City population11,3541,013,240
People per km²2902,167
Museums within 10 km319
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C11 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cocoa Beach or San Jose 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.