Dubrovnik or Rome?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on beaches & swimming and value for money with your weighting.
Wins on nature & day trips 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.
The verdict
Choose Dubrovnik if swimming is the point: the sea begins at the centre, 43 beaches sit nearby, and the whole place is small enough to cross on foot.
Choose Rome if you want museums, evening options and day trips out of town, with children in tow or not, and a season that works well beyond the summer weeks.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Dubrovnik leads by 44 points.44
| Dubrovnik | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 77 | 33 |
| Swim season months | 5 | 5 |
| Beaches 10 km | 43 | 3 |
| Coast distance | 0 km | 24 km |
| Water distance | 0 km | 24 km |
Places to eat. Rome leads by 22 points.22
| Dubrovnik | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 38 | 60 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 206 | 2,241 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 18 | 10 |
Museums & heritage. Rome leads by 35 points.35
| Dubrovnik | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 49 | 84 |
| Museums within 10 km | 18 | 161 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 17 | 79 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 94 | 49 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 3 | 7 |
Nightlife. Rome leads by 54 points.54
| Dubrovnik | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 20 | 74 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 128 | 2,022 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 110 | 912 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 86 | 45 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 13 | 85 |
Nature & day trips. Rome leads by 65 points.65
| Dubrovnik | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 5 | 70 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 4 | 19 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 4 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 51 | 78 |
| Park area within 2 km | 6 hectares | 172 hectares |
Good for families. Rome leads by 65 points.65
| Dubrovnik | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 21 | 86 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 12 | 126 |
| Park area within 2 km | 6 hectares | 172 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 1 | 4 |
Sights concentration. Rome leads by 55 points.55
| Dubrovnik | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 44 | 99 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 48 | 1,125 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Dubrovnik leads by 12 points.12
| Dubrovnik | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 80 | 68 |
| Price level global | 48.5 | 64.9 |
| Daily budget | €138 | €155 |
Year-round weather. Rome leads by 6 points.6
| Dubrovnik | Rome | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 65 | 71 |
| Monthly daytime high | 11 °C to 29.1 °C | 12 °C to 31.4 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 54 mm to 198 mm | 21 mm to 114 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 3 |
Where they differ
Dubrovnik is the one for water. The sea is 0km from its centre against 24km from Rome's, and there are 43 beaches nearby against Rome's 3. Its museums and drinking places also sit tightly around the centre, so little walking is needed.
Rome is stronger everywhere inland. 19% of the land around it is protected against 4% around Dubrovnik, park space near the centre is far greater, there are 4 theme parks within reach against 1, and many times more notable places within walking distance.
Where they are alike
Neither city has a difficult year. Both peak in the same summer month, with highs of 29°C in Dubrovnik and 31°C in Rome, and both offer five months of sea at 21°C or more, so swimming stays possible well into autumn.
Eating out is the other near-match. Rome has many more restaurants near its centre, while Dubrovnik covers a wider range of kitchens, and national price levels in the two countries are not far apart.
Which traveller are you?
Swimmers, and anyone who wants the water at the end of the street: Dubrovnik. The sea is at the centre, 43 beaches lie nearby, and this is the one axis where it clearly leads.
Families: Rome, without much argument. It has far more attractions and park space near the centre, plus 4 theme parks within reach against Dubrovnik's 1, and protected countryside for day trips.
Museum-goers and night owls: Rome again, with many times as many museums and places to drink, and 7 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against 3. In Dubrovnik both sit closer together, but there is much less of each.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €138 and €155, are national price levels for restaurants and hotels rather than measurements of either city. A heavily visited walled town and a capital both sit away from their own country's average, and that difference can exceed the gap between the two figures.
Dubrovnik's beach appeal and its best weather land in the same short summer window, and the town is small, so the crowding that concentrates there is not visible in any of these figures. The shoulder months stay warm, but September brings 143mm of rain and the following months more, so warmth alone will mislead.
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. Dubrovnik: 1999-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Dubrovnik / Cilipi (15.3 km from centre). Rome: 1991-2020 normals, Roma / Ciampino (15.1 km from centre).
Dubrovnik is at its best in July and August, when highs reach 29°C and the sea sits at 25-26°C; July is also its driest month, at 54mm. September keeps the warm sea but rain returns, at 143mm.
Rome has the longer season. May and June are warm without the peak heat, at 24-28°C, and June is close to dry at 33mm. Rome also stays drier through autumn and winter, so a late-season visit is less likely to be rained off.
Getting there
| Flying from | Dubrovnik | Rome |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 40 m no fares DBV · 16 km | 2 h 20 m €76-143 1 stop FCO · 23 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 2 h 20 m €63-108 DBV · 16 km | 2 h 0 m €91-122 FCO · 23 km |
| MadridMAD | 2 h 50 m no fares DBV · 16 km | 2 h 15 m €98-119 FCO · 23 km |
| ZagrebZAG | 1 h 10 m no fares DBV · 16 km | 1 h 20 m no fares FCO · 23 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 2 h 15 m no fares DBV · 16 km | 1 h 40 m €44-74 FCO · 23 km |
| ViennaVIE | 1 h 25 m €66-134 DBV · 16 km | 1 h 35 m €66-127 FCO · 23 km |
| DublinDUB | 3 h 15 m €135-178 2 stops DBV · 16 km | 2 h 55 m €118-198 1 stop FCO · 23 km |
| CataniaCTA | 1 h 25 m no fares TGD · 99 km | 1 h 20 m €60-112 FCO · 23 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 9 h 10 m no fares DBV · 16 km | 8 h 45 m €446-597 FCO · 23 km |
| Tel Aviv YafoTLV | 2 h 50 m €274-389 TIV · 57 km | 3 h 20 m €115-179 FCO · 23 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
| Measure | Dubrovnik | Rome |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Croatian | Italian |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CF230 V, 50 Hz | CFL230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 |
| Elevation | 10 m | 21 m |
| Main airport | Dubrovnik Ruđer Bošković Airport (DBV)16 km from centre74 non-stop destinations | Rome–Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci International Airport (FCO)23 km from centre230 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 14 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Dubrovnik | Rome |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 41,562 | 2,748,109 |
| People per km² | – | 2,135 |
| Museums within 10 km | 7 | 177 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 3 | 7 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 32 | 65 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 5 months | 5 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Dubrovnik or Rome somewhere new.