Dubrovnik or Valletta?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on value for money with your weighting.
Wins on nature & day trips and nightlife 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 your trip is mainly swimming and walking a small old centre, with 43 beaches to work through, and you accept a short, hot, dry summer window.
Choose Valletta if you want museums, a wider choice of restaurants, parks and attractions for children, and a season that stretches from spring into autumn with little rain.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Dubrovnik and Valletta are level on 77.
| Dubrovnik | Valletta | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 77 | 77 |
| Swim season months | 5 | 6 |
| Beaches 10 km | 43 | 22 |
| Coast distance | 0 km | 0 km |
| Water distance | 0 km | 0 km |
Places to eat. Valletta leads by 20 points.20
| Dubrovnik | Valletta | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 38 | 58 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 206 | 416 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 18 | 35 |
Museums & heritage. Valletta leads by 12 points.12
| Dubrovnik | Valletta | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 49 | 61 |
| Museums within 10 km | 18 | 46 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 17 | 29 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 94 | 63 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 3 | 3 |
Nightlife. Valletta leads by 27 points.27
| Dubrovnik | Valletta | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 20 | 47 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 128 | 522 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 110 | 250 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 86 | 48 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 13 | 27 |
Nature & day trips. Valletta leads by 41 points.41
| Dubrovnik | Valletta | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 5 | 46 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 4 | — |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 4 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 51 | 6 |
| Park area within 2 km | 6 hectares | 24 hectares |
Good for families. Valletta leads by 25 points.25
| Dubrovnik | Valletta | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 21 | 46 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 12 | 32 |
| Park area within 2 km | 6 hectares | 24 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 1 | 1 |
Sights concentration. Valletta leads by 17 points.17
| Dubrovnik | Valletta | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 44 | 61 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 48 | 133 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Dubrovnik leads by 11 points.11
| Dubrovnik | Valletta | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 80 | 69 |
| Price level global | 48.5 | 62.8 |
| Daily budget | €138 | €129 |
Year-round weather. Valletta leads by 14 points.14
| Dubrovnik | Valletta | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 65 | 79 |
| Monthly daytime high | 11 °C to 29.1 °C | 15.7 °C to 31.9 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 54 mm to 198 mm | 0 mm to 90 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 6 |
Where they differ
Dubrovnik is the quieter of the two. Its drinking places are few, but almost all of them sit near the centre, so an evening out stays walkable, and there is little park space near the old town.
Valletta has many times as many places to drink and about twice as many nightclubs, though only about half are near the centre. It also has far more park space close in and about three times as many tourist attractions near the centre; both have 1 theme park within reach.
Where they are alike
Both sit on the water: the sea is 0km from either centre, and both peak in August, with the sea at 26°C in Dubrovnik and 27°C in Valletta. Either works as a swimming trip.
On heritage and cost the two land close as well. Each has 3 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, and the national price estimates behind them, Croatia's and Malta's, are near enough that neither promises a cheaper trip.
Which traveller are you?
A family with young children will do better in Valletta: about three times as many tourist attractions near the centre, far more park space close in, and the shorter walk between them. Both have 1 theme park within reach.
Swimmers can take either: the sea is at the door in both, though Dubrovnik has 43 beaches nearby against Valletta's 22, while Valletta's swimming season runs longer.
Anyone travelling for museums, restaurants and evenings out should pick Valletta: about three times as many museums, roughly twice as many restaurants near the centre, and far more bars, though Dubrovnik keeps its few closer together.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget is a national estimate for Croatia and Malta, the price level for restaurants and hotels, not a measurement of either city. A small walled town that draws heavy visitor numbers and a capital can both sit far from their country's average, by more than the gap between the two figures.
The two also tie on swimming for different reasons: Dubrovnik has 43 beaches nearby, Valletta 22 with a longer warm-sea season, and neither count says anything about how full they get in August. A warm month is not a dry one either: Dubrovnik's September reads as summer at 25°C but is among its wettest.
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). Valletta: 1991-2020 normals, Luqa (5.9 km from centre).
Dubrovnik is at its best from June to August: highs of 26-29°C, sea at 23-26°C and rainfall down to 54-71mm. September still reads as summer but the rain returns, and late autumn is wetter again, close to 200mm a month.
Valletta has the longer window: April to June and September to October run 20-29°C, with late spring nearly dry at 5-19mm. High summer is hotter at 32°C, and midwinter still reaches 16°C.
Getting there
| Flying from | Dubrovnik | Valletta |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 40 m no fares DBV · 16 km | 3 h 10 m €91-131 1 stop MLA · 6 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 15 m €55-130 DBV · 16 km | 1 h 30 m €37-71 MLA · 6 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 2 h 20 m €63-108 DBV · 16 km | 2 h 45 m €99-132 1 stop MLA · 6 km |
| ZagrebZAG | 1 h 10 m no fares DBV · 16 km | 2 h 0 m €93-125 MLA · 6 km |
| ManchesterMAN | 2 h 55 m no fares DBV · 16 km | 3 h 25 m no fares MLA · 6 km |
| ViennaVIE | 1 h 25 m €66-134 DBV · 16 km | 2 h 15 m €111-180 1 stop MLA · 6 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 2 h 0 m €181-222 1 stop DBV · 16 km | 2 h 35 m no fares MLA · 6 km |
| MunichMUC | 1 h 40 m €240-268 DBV · 16 km | 2 h 20 m €165-259 MLA · 6 km |
| Tel Aviv YafoTLV | 2 h 50 m €274-389 TIV · 57 km | 2 h 55 m no fares MLA · 6 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 9 h 10 m no fares DBV · 16 km | 9 h 20 m no fares MLA · 6 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 | Valletta |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Croatian | English, Maltese |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CF230 V, 50 Hz | G230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Left |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 |
| Elevation | 10 m | 56 m |
| Main airport | Dubrovnik Ruđer Bošković Airport (DBV)16 km from centre74 non-stop destinations | Malta International Airport (MLA)6 km from centre109 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 14 days | 14 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Dubrovnik | Valletta |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 41,562 | 6,444 |
| People per km² | – | 8,055 |
| Museums within 10 km | 7 | 15 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 3 | 3 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 32 | 55 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 5 months | 6 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Dubrovnik or Valletta somewhere new.