VacationSelector
Durban
The Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock, Petra
PetraThe Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock

Photos: Petra by Yasir Gürbüz, Pexels License.

Durban or Petra?

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
  • food and drink
  • nightlife

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

Choose Petra for

  • culture and sights
  • nature and the outdoors
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Petra’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, Petra 5: Durban leads by 75 points.
Food & drink. Durban 60, Petra 22: Durban leads by 38 points.
Culture & sights. Durban 38, Petra 85: Petra leads by 47 points.
Nightlife. Durban 40, Petra 5: Durban leads by 35 points.
Nature & outdoors. Durban 68, Petra 78: Petra leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Durban 38, Petra 30: Durban leads by 8 points.
Good for families. Durban 60, Petra 25: Durban leads by 35 points.
Getting around. Durban 20, Petra 25: Petra leads by 5 points.
Shopping & style. Durban 42, Petra 18: Durban leads by 24 points.
Affordability. Durban 72, Petra 45: Durban leads by 27 points.
Live music & performing arts. Durban 40, Petra 10: Durban leads by 30 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Durban 30, Petra 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 Petra.

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 food and drink with your weighting.

Petra
31match

Wins on culture and sights and nature and the outdoors 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

Petra in July

35 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
DurbanPetra

Where the figures come from

Petra's temperatures are measured 34 km from the centre, at Ma'An.

Petra's station stands 219 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

Petra 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). Petra: 1991-2020 normals, Ma'An (33.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureDurbanPetra
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign LanguageArabic
CurrencyRand (ZAR)Jordanian Dinar (JOD)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzBCFGJ230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC+3
Emergency number112911
Elevation22 m850 m
Main airportKing Shaka International Airport (DUR)29 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsKing Hussein International Airport (AQJ)90 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days-

By the numbers

MeasureDurbanPetra
City population595,061-
People per km²2,634-
Museums within 10 km12
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 Petra 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.