VacationSelector
Durban
Sugarloaf Mountain above the boats in Botafogo Bay, Rio de Janeiro
Rio de JaneiroSugarloaf Mountain above the boats in Botafogo Bay

Photos: Rio de Janeiro by Arne Müseler, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, cropped.

Durban or Rio de Janeiro?

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

  • prices
  • families

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

Choose Rio de Janeiro for

  • nightlife
  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Rio de Janeiro’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, Rio de Janeiro 92: Rio de Janeiro leads by 12 points.
Food & drink. Durban 60, Rio de Janeiro 62: Rio de Janeiro leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Durban 38, Rio de Janeiro 68: Rio de Janeiro leads by 30 points.
Nightlife. Durban 40, Rio de Janeiro 80: Rio de Janeiro leads by 40 points.
Nature & outdoors. Durban 68, Rio de Janeiro 90: Rio de Janeiro leads by 22 points.
Day trips. Durban 38, Rio de Janeiro 50: Rio de Janeiro leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Durban 60, Rio de Janeiro 50: Durban leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Durban 20, Rio de Janeiro 44: Rio de Janeiro leads by 24 points.
Shopping & style. Durban 42, Rio de Janeiro 50: Rio de Janeiro leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Durban 72, Rio de Janeiro 60: Durban leads by 12 points.
Live music & performing arts. Durban 40, Rio de Janeiro 66: Rio de Janeiro leads by 26 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Durban and Rio de Janeiro are level on 30.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Durban and Rio de Janeiro.

Your match

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

Durban
49match

Wins on prices and families with your weighting.

Rio de Janeiro
Best match
62match

Wins on nightlife and culture and sights 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

Rio de Janeiro in July

24 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
45 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
22 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
DurbanRio de Janeiro

Where the figures come from

Rio de Janeiro 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). Rio de Janeiro: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureDurbanRio de Janeiro
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign LanguagePortuguese
CurrencyRand (ZAR)Brazilian Real (BRL)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzCN60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC-3
Emergency number112Police 190, ambulance 192, fire 193
Elevation22 m31 m
Main airportKing Shaka International Airport (DUR)29 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsRio de Janeiro Galeão – Tom Jobim International Airport (GIG)12 km from centre54 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureDurbanRio de Janeiro
City population595,0616,211,223
People per km²2,6344,930
Museums within 10 km169
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km13
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

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