VacationSelector
Durban
The old Bath House in the Government Gardens, Rotorua
RotoruaThe old Bath House in the Government Gardens

Photos: Rotorua by W. Bulach, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Durban or Rotorua?

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
  • prices
  • food and drink

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

Choose Rotorua for

  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Rotorua’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, Rotorua 33: Durban leads by 47 points.
Food & drink. Durban 60, Rotorua 33: Durban leads by 27 points.
Culture & sights. Durban and Rotorua are level on 38.
Nightlife. Durban 40, Rotorua 14: Durban leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Durban 68, Rotorua 86: Rotorua leads by 18 points.
Day trips. Durban 38, Rotorua 45: Rotorua leads by 7 points.
Good for families. Durban 60, Rotorua 68: Rotorua leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Durban 20, Rotorua 30: Rotorua leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Durban 42, Rotorua 22: Durban leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Durban 72, Rotorua 36: Durban leads by 36 points.
Live music & performing arts. Durban 40, Rotorua 30: Durban leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Durban 30, Rotorua 86: Rotorua leads by 56 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Durban and Rotorua.

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 prices with your weighting.

Rotorua
43match

Wins on wellness 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

Rotorua in July

11 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
113 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
15 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
DurbanRotorua

Where the figures come from

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

Before you go

MeasureDurbanRotorua
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign LanguageEnglish, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyRand (ZAR)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+2UTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency number112111
Elevation22 m280 m
Main airportKing Shaka International Airport (DUR)29 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsRotorua Regional Airport (ROT)7 km from centre3 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureDurbanRotorua
City population595,06158,500
People per km²2,63422
Museums within 10 km11
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 Rotorua 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.