VacationSelector
Durban
The Winchester Mystery House, San Jose
San JoseThe Winchester Mystery House

Photos: San Jose by Roxanna Salceda, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Durban or San Jose?

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
  • beaches
  • nightlife

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

Choose San Jose for

  • day trips
  • getting around
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on San Jose’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, San Jose 30: Durban leads by 50 points.
Food & drink. Durban 60, San Jose 56: Durban leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Durban 38, San Jose 36: Durban leads by 2 points.
Nightlife. Durban 40, San Jose 33: Durban leads by 7 points.
Nature & outdoors. Durban 68, San Jose 72: San Jose leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Durban 38, San Jose 78: San Jose leads by 40 points.
Good for families. Durban 60, San Jose 65: San Jose leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Durban 20, San Jose 30: San Jose leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Durban 42, San Jose 48: San Jose leads by 6 points.
Affordability. Durban 72, San Jose 20: Durban leads by 52 points.
Live music & performing arts. Durban 40, San Jose 38: Durban leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Durban and San Jose are level on 30.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Durban and San Jose.

Your match

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

Durban
Best match
49match

Wins on prices and beaches with your weighting.

San Jose
45match

Wins on day trips and getting around 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

San Jose in July

27 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
14 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
DurbanSan Jose

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Durban: 1991-2020 normals, Durban, Durban International Airport (14.1 km from centre). San Jose: 1991-2020 normals, San Jose / Santa Clara Trailer Village (8.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureDurbanSan Jose
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign Language-
CurrencyRand (ZAR)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation22 m25 m
Main airportKing Shaka International Airport (DUR)29 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsMineta San Jose International Airport (SJC)8 km from centre38 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureDurbanSan Jose
City population595,0611,013,240
People per km²2,6342,167
Museums within 10 km119
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 San Jose 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.