VacationSelector
Durban
La Paz

Durban or La Paz?

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
  • families
  • wellness

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

Choose La Paz for

  • getting around
  • prices
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on La Paz’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, La Paz 3: Durban leads by 77 points.
Food & drink. Durban 60, La Paz 50: Durban leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Durban 38, La Paz 52: La Paz leads by 14 points.
Nightlife. Durban 40, La Paz 38: Durban leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Durban 68, La Paz 82: La Paz leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Durban 38, La Paz 40: La Paz leads by 2 points.
Good for families. Durban 60, La Paz 10: Durban leads by 50 points.
Getting around. Durban 20, La Paz 45: La Paz leads by 25 points.
Shopping & style. Durban 42, La Paz 45: La Paz leads by 3 points.
Affordability. Durban 72, La Paz 92: La Paz leads by 20 points.
Live music & performing arts. Durban 40, La Paz 35: Durban leads by 5 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Durban 30, La Paz 12: Durban leads by 18 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Durban and La Paz.

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 families with your weighting.

La Paz
42match

Wins on getting around and prices 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

La Paz in July

13 °Cdaytime high
-2 °Cnight-time low
16 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
11 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
DurbanLa Paz

Where the figures come from

La Paz has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Durban: 1991-2020 normals, Durban, Durban International Airport (14.1 km from centre). La Paz: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureDurbanLa Paz
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign LanguageSpanish, Aymara, Quechua, Guarani
CurrencyRand (ZAR)Boliviano (BOB)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzAC50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC-4
Emergency number112911
Elevation22 m3,640 m
Main airportKing Shaka International Airport (DUR)29 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsEl Alto International Airport (LPB)6 km from centre12 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureDurbanLa Paz
City population595,061755,732
People per km²2,6341,601
Museums within 10 km121
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Durban or La Paz 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.