VacationSelector
The white medina above the harbour walls, Essaouira
EssaouiraThe white medina above the harbour walls
The clock tower in the old town, Kotor
KotorThe clock tower in the old town

Photos: Essaouira by Manel Cusido, Pexels License; Kotor by Muhammed Fatih Beki, Pexels License.

Essaouira or Kotor?

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

  • wellness
  • shopping
  • prices

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

Choose Kotor for

  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Kotor’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, Kotor 57: Kotor leads by 10 points.
Food & drink. Essaouira 44, Kotor 37: Essaouira leads by 7 points.
Culture & sights. Essaouira 48, Kotor 55: Kotor leads by 7 points.
Nightlife. Essaouira 14, Kotor 30: Kotor leads by 16 points.
Nature & outdoors. Essaouira 57, Kotor 80: Kotor leads by 23 points.
Day trips. Essaouira 17, Kotor 72: Kotor leads by 55 points.
Good for families. Essaouira 42, Kotor 36: Essaouira leads by 6 points.
Getting around. Essaouira 58, Kotor 48: Essaouira leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Essaouira 44, Kotor 20: Essaouira leads by 24 points.
Affordability. Essaouira 74, Kotor 57: Essaouira leads by 17 points.
Live music & performing arts. Essaouira 28, Kotor 20: Essaouira leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Essaouira 66, Kotor 24: Essaouira leads by 42 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Essaouira and Kotor.

Your match

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

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Essaouira
45match

Wins on wellness and shopping with your weighting.

Kotor
45match

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

Kotor in July

31 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
39 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
EssaouiraKotor

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.

Kotor 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.

Kotor's sunshine is measured 42 km from the centre, at Podgorica-Grad.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Essaouira: 1991-2020 normals, Essaouira (1.4 km from centre). Kotor: 1991-2020 normals, Tivat (4.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureEssaouiraKotor
Official languageArabic, Standard Moroccan TamazightMontenegrin
CurrencyMoroccan Dirham (MAD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCE50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 19/112, ambulance 15, fire 15112
Elevation11 m10 m
Main airportEssaouira-Mogador Airport (ESU)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsTivat Airport (TIV)5 km from centre42 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days-

By the numbers

MeasureEssaouiraKotor
City population82,962562
People per km²16,592-
Museums within 10 km23
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km13
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Essaouira or Kotor 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. 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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.