VacationSelector

Dubrovnik or Istanbul?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Dubrovnik
44
match

Wins on beaches & swimming with your weighting.

Istanbul
✓ Best match
65
match

Wins on nightlife and good for families 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.

DubrovnikIstanbul
Beaches & swimming. Dubrovnik leads by 34 points.34
DubrovnikIstanbul
Score7743
Swim season months53
Beaches 10 km432
Coast distance0 km0 km
Water distance0 km0 km
Places to eat. Istanbul leads by 32 points.32
DubrovnikIstanbul
Score3870
Restaurants within 2 km of centre2062,086
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km1820
Museums & heritage. Istanbul leads by 17 points.17
DubrovnikIstanbul
Score4966
Museums within 10 km18145
Museums within 2 km of centre1771
Share of museums within 2 km %9449
Unesco sites within 50 km31
Nightlife. Istanbul leads by 59 points.59
DubrovnikIstanbul
Score2079
Drinking venues within 4 km1282,266
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre1101,176
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8652
Nightclubs within 4 km13221
Nature & day trips. Istanbul leads by 20 points.20
DubrovnikIstanbul
Score525
Protected land share 50 km %41
Landscape blanket share 50 km %40
Land share of disc %5148
Park area within 2 km6 hectares60 hectares
Good for families. Istanbul leads by 46 points.46
DubrovnikIstanbul
Score2167
Tourist attractions within 2 km1268
Park area within 2 km6 hectares60 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km12
Sights concentration. Istanbul leads by 31 points.31
DubrovnikIstanbul
Score4475
Notable places within 2 km48285
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Istanbul leads by 9 points.9
DubrovnikIstanbul
Score8089
Price level global48.535.2
Daily budget€138€100
Year-round weather. Istanbul leads by 4 points.4
DubrovnikIstanbul
Score6569
Monthly daytime high11 °C to 29.1 °C9.2 °C to 29.7 °C
Monthly rainfall54 mm to 198 mm23 mm to 101 mm
Dry months04
0255075100

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.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Dubrovnik
11
12
14
18
22
26
29
29
25
21
17
13
Istanbul
9
10
12
17
22
27
30
30
26
21
16
11
Sea temperature, °C
Dubrovnik
14
14
14
15
19
23
25
26
24
21
19
16
Istanbul
9
8
9
11
16
21
23
24
22
19
15
12
Rainfall, mm
Dubrovnik
141
121
112
127
90
71
54
62
143
145
192
198
Istanbul
74
74
66
47
29
29
23
29
43
85
79
101
Daylight, hours per day
Dubrovnik
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Istanbul
10
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Dubrovnik
4
4
6
6
8
9
11
10
7
6
4
4
Istanbul
3
3
5
6
9
10
11
10
7
5
4
2

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Dubrovnik: 1999-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Dubrovnik / Cilipi (15.3 km from centre). Istanbul: 1991-2020 normals, Istanbul / Goztepe (9.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromDubrovnikIstanbul
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
2 h 40 m
no fares
DBV · 16 km
3 h 35 m
€110-186
IST · 36 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
2 h 20 m
€63-108
DBV · 16 km
3 h 15 m
€141-223
IST · 36 km
ZagrebZAG
1 h 10 m
no fares
DBV · 16 km
2 h 0 m
no fares
IST · 36 km
AntalyaAYT
2 h 0 m
no fares
TGD · 99 km
1 h 15 m
€54-87
SAW · 30 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
2 h 0 m
€181-222
1 stop
DBV · 16 km
2 h 50 m
€137-196
IST · 36 km
ViennaVIE
1 h 25 m
€66-134
DBV · 16 km
2 h 5 m
no fares
IST · 36 km
IzmirADB
1 h 35 m
€208-256
TGD · 99 km
1 h 5 m
€49-61
IST · 36 km
DublinDUB
3 h 15 m
€135-178
2 stops
DBV · 16 km
4 h 5 m
no fares
IST · 36 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
9 h 10 m
no fares
DBV · 16 km
10 h 5 m
€608-794
IST · 36 km
AlmatyALA
6 h 5 m
€370-455
3 stops
TGD · 99 km
5 h 15 m
no fares
IST · 36 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 2026-09, 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

MeasureDubrovnikIstanbul
Official languageCroatianTurkish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Turkish Lira (TRY)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+3
Emergency number112112
Elevation10 m100 m
Main airportDubrovnik Ruđer Bošković Airport (DBV)16 km from centre74 non-stop destinationsİstanbul Airport (IST)36 km from centre345 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureDubrovnikIstanbul
City population41,56215,655,924
People per km²2,930
Museums within 10 km772
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km31
Distinct cuisines in the centre3262
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 months3 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Dubrovnik or Istanbul somewhere new.

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.