VacationSelector
The white medina above the harbour walls, Essaouira
EssaouiraThe white medina above the harbour walls
Inverness Castle above the River Ness, Inverness
InvernessInverness Castle above the River Ness

Photos: Essaouira by Manel Cusido, Pexels License; Inverness by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Essaouira or Inverness?

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 Essaouira for

  • prices
  • wellness
  • beaches

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

Choose Inverness for

  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Inverness’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. Essaouira 47, Inverness 20: Essaouira leads by 27 points.
Food & drink. Essaouira 44, Inverness 36: Essaouira leads by 8 points.
Culture & sights. Essaouira 48, Inverness 27: Essaouira leads by 21 points.
Nightlife. Essaouira 14, Inverness 28: Inverness leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. Essaouira 57, Inverness 84: Inverness leads by 27 points.
Day trips. Essaouira 17, Inverness 56: Inverness leads by 39 points.
Good for families. Essaouira 42, Inverness 55: Inverness leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Essaouira 58, Inverness 48: Essaouira leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Essaouira 44, Inverness 30: Essaouira leads by 14 points.
Affordability. Essaouira 74, Inverness 38: Essaouira leads by 36 points.
Live music & performing arts. Essaouira 28, Inverness 33: Inverness leads by 5 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Essaouira 66, Inverness 30: Essaouira leads by 36 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Essaouira and Inverness.

Your match

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

Essaouira
Best match
45match

Wins on prices and wellness with your weighting.

Inverness
40match

Wins on day trips 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.

Essaouira in July

22 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Inverness in July

19 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
69 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
14 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°5°10°15°20°25°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
EssaouiraInverness

Where the figures come from

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.

Inverness 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.

Inverness's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Kinloss.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Essaouira: 1991-2020 normals, Essaouira (1.4 km from centre). Inverness: 2005-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Inverness / Dalcross (11.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureEssaouiraInverness
Official languageArabic, Standard Moroccan TamazightEnglish
CurrencyMoroccan Dirham (MAD)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsCE50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+1UTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 19/112, ambulance 15, fire 15112 or 999
Elevation11 m7 m
Main airportEssaouira-Mogador Airport (ESU)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsInverness Airport (INV)12 km from centre15 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureEssaouiraInverness
City population82,96247,380
People per km²16,5922,289
Museums within 10 km23
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °CNoneNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Essaouira or Inverness 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). 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.