VacationSelector
Durban
The colonnaded court of Luxor Temple, Luxor
LuxorThe colonnaded court of Luxor Temple

Photos: Luxor by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Durban or Luxor?

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
  • nature and the outdoors
  • food and drink

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

Choose Luxor for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Luxor’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, Luxor 6: Durban leads by 74 points.
Food & drink. Durban 60, Luxor 30: Durban leads by 30 points.
Culture & sights. Durban 38, Luxor 95: Luxor leads by 57 points.
Nightlife. Durban 40, Luxor 10: Durban leads by 30 points.
Nature & outdoors. Durban 68, Luxor 32: Durban leads by 36 points.
Day trips. Durban 38, Luxor 62: Luxor leads by 24 points.
Good for families. Durban 60, Luxor 30: Durban leads by 30 points.
Getting around. Durban 20, Luxor 35: Luxor leads by 15 points.
Shopping & style. Durban 42, Luxor 25: Durban leads by 17 points.
Affordability. Durban 72, Luxor 90: Luxor leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. Durban 40, Luxor 10: Durban leads by 30 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Durban 30, Luxor 28: Durban leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Durban and Luxor.

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 nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Luxor
38match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips 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

Luxor in July

41 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
DurbanLuxor

Where the figures come from

Luxor 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). Luxor: 1998-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Luxor (6.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureDurbanLuxor
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign LanguageArabic
CurrencyRand (ZAR)Egyptian Pound (EGP)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number112Police 122, ambulance 123, fire 180
Elevation22 m89 m
Main airportKing Shaka International Airport (DUR)29 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsLuxor International Airport (LXR)7 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureDurbanLuxor
City population595,061202,232
People per km²2,634486
Museums within 10 km14
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 Luxor 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.