VacationSelector
Durban
The white medina above the harbour walls, Essaouira
EssaouiraThe white medina above the harbour walls

Photos: Essaouira by Manel Cusido, Pexels License.

Durban or Essaouira?

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 Durban for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • day trips

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

Choose Essaouira for

  • getting around
  • wellness
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Essaouira’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. Durban 80, Essaouira 47: Durban leads by 33 points.
Food & drink. Durban 60, Essaouira 44: Durban leads by 16 points.
Culture & sights. Durban 38, Essaouira 48: Essaouira leads by 10 points.
Nightlife. Durban 40, Essaouira 14: Durban leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Durban 68, Essaouira 57: Durban leads by 11 points.
Day trips. Durban 38, Essaouira 17: Durban leads by 21 points.
Good for families. Durban 60, Essaouira 42: Durban leads by 18 points.
Getting around. Durban 20, Essaouira 58: Essaouira leads by 38 points.
Shopping & style. Durban 42, Essaouira 44: Essaouira leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Durban 72, Essaouira 74: Essaouira leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Durban 40, Essaouira 28: Durban leads by 12 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Durban 30, Essaouira 66: Essaouira leads by 36 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Durban and Essaouira.

Your match

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

Durban
Best match
49match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Essaouira
45match

Wins on getting around and wellness with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Durban in July

23 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
44 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
22 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Essaouira in July

22 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
DurbanEssaouira

Where the figures come from

Essaouira 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. Durban: 1991-2020 normals, Durban, Durban International Airport (14.1 km from centre). Essaouira: 1991-2020 normals, Essaouira (1.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureDurbanEssaouira
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign LanguageArabic, Standard Moroccan Tamazight
CurrencyRand (ZAR)Moroccan Dirham (MAD)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzCE50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC+1
Emergency number112Police 19/112, ambulance 15, fire 15
Elevation22 m11 m
Main airportKing Shaka International Airport (DUR)29 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsEssaouira-Mogador Airport (ESU)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureDurbanEssaouira
City population595,06182,962
People per km²2,63416,592
Museums within 10 km12
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Durban or Essaouira 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.