VacationSelector
The beach and pier at uShaka, Durban
DurbanThe beach and pier at uShaka
The harbour front with the church tower above the houses, Saint-Tropez
Saint-TropezThe harbour front with the church tower above the houses

Photos: Durban by Ossewa, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Saint-Tropez by AXP Photography, Pexels License.

Durban or Saint-Tropez?

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
  • live music and the arts
  • families

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

Choose Saint-Tropez for

  • shopping
  • nightlife
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Saint-Tropez’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, Saint-Tropez 82: Saint-Tropez leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Durban 60, Saint-Tropez 48: Durban leads by 12 points.
Culture & sights. Durban 38, Saint-Tropez 35: Durban leads by 3 points.
Nightlife. Durban 40, Saint-Tropez 60: Saint-Tropez leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Durban 68, Saint-Tropez 72: Saint-Tropez leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Durban 38, Saint-Tropez 57: Saint-Tropez leads by 19 points.
Good for families. Durban 60, Saint-Tropez 42: Durban leads by 18 points.
Getting around. Durban 20, Saint-Tropez 32: Saint-Tropez leads by 12 points.
Shopping & style. Durban 42, Saint-Tropez 64: Saint-Tropez leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Durban 72, Saint-Tropez 8: Durban leads by 64 points.
Live music & performing arts. Durban 40, Saint-Tropez 18: Durban leads by 22 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Durban 30, Saint-Tropez 35: Saint-Tropez leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Durban and Saint-Tropez.

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 live music and the arts with your weighting.

Saint-Tropez
46match

Wins on shopping and nightlife 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

Saint-Tropez in July

32 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
10 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
23 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
DurbanSaint-Tropez

Where the figures come from

Saint-Tropez 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.

Saint-Tropez's sunshine is measured 62 km from the centre, at Nice.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Durban: 1991-2020 normals, Durban, Durban International Airport (14.1 km from centre). Saint-Tropez: 1999-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Le Luc (24.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureDurbanSaint-Tropez
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign LanguageFrench
CurrencyRand (ZAR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzCE230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation22 m0 m
Main airportKing Shaka International Airport (DUR)29 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsNice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)64 km from centre130 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureDurbanSaint-Tropez
City population595,0613,582
People per km²2,634320
Museums within 10 km14
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months3 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Durban or Saint-Tropez 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.