VacationSelector
The entrance to the Big Lagoon, El Nido
El NidoThe entrance to the Big Lagoon
The white medina above the harbour walls, Essaouira
EssaouiraThe white medina above the harbour walls

Photos: El Nido by nennnn, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Essaouira by Manel Cusido, Pexels License.

El Nido or Essaouira?

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 El Nido for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • nightlife

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

Choose Essaouira for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Essaouira’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. El Nido 92, Essaouira 47: El Nido leads by 45 points.
Food & drink. El Nido 27, Essaouira 44: Essaouira leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. El Nido 4, Essaouira 48: Essaouira leads by 44 points.
Nightlife. El Nido 30, Essaouira 14: El Nido leads by 16 points.
Nature & outdoors. El Nido 87, Essaouira 57: El Nido leads by 30 points.
Day trips. El Nido 8, Essaouira 17: Essaouira leads by 9 points.
Good for families. El Nido 40, Essaouira 42: Essaouira leads by 2 points.
Getting around. El Nido 22, Essaouira 58: Essaouira leads by 36 points.
Shopping & style. El Nido 7, Essaouira 44: Essaouira leads by 37 points.
Affordability. El Nido 64, Essaouira 74: Essaouira leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. El Nido 7, Essaouira 28: Essaouira leads by 21 points.
Wellness & relaxation. El Nido 46, Essaouira 66: Essaouira leads by 20 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: El Nido and Essaouira.

Your match

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

El Nido
36match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Essaouira
Best match
45match

Wins on culture and sights and shopping with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

El Nido in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
368 mmrain in the month
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Essaouira in July

22 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
El NidoEssaouira

Where the figures come from

El Nido 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.

Essaouira 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. El Nido: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Essaouira: 1991-2020 normals, Essaouira (1.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureEl NidoEssaouira
Official languageEnglish, Filipino, TaglishArabic, Standard Moroccan Tamazight
CurrencyPhilippine Peso (PHP)Moroccan Dirham (MAD)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzCE50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+8UTC+1
Emergency number911Police 19/112, ambulance 15, fire 15
Elevation35 m11 m
Main airportEl Nido Airport (ENI)4 km from centre5 non-stop destinationsEssaouira-Mogador Airport (ESU)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year18 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureEl NidoEssaouira
City population51,36782,962
People per km²5616,592
Museums within 10 km02
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
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 El Nido or Essaouira somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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.