VacationSelector
The white medina above the harbour walls, Essaouira
EssaouiraThe white medina above the harbour walls
The Arctic Cathedral, Tromso
TromsoThe Arctic Cathedral

Photos: Essaouira by Manel Cusido, Pexels License; Tromso by Moyan Brenn, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Essaouira or Tromso?

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
  • beaches
  • shopping

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

Choose Tromso for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • nightlife
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Tromso’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, Tromso 8: Essaouira leads by 39 points.
Food & drink. Essaouira 44, Tromso 36: Essaouira leads by 8 points.
Culture & sights. Essaouira 48, Tromso 27: Essaouira leads by 21 points.
Nightlife. Essaouira 14, Tromso 38: Tromso leads by 24 points.
Nature & outdoors. Essaouira 57, Tromso 92: Tromso leads by 35 points.
Day trips. Essaouira 17, Tromso 14: Essaouira leads by 3 points.
Good for families. Essaouira 42, Tromso 45: Tromso leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Essaouira 58, Tromso 60: Tromso leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Essaouira 44, Tromso 15: Essaouira leads by 29 points.
Affordability. Essaouira 74, Tromso 11: Essaouira leads by 63 points.
Live music & performing arts. Essaouira 28, Tromso 32: Tromso leads by 4 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Essaouira 66, Tromso 38: Essaouira leads by 28 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Essaouira and Tromso.

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 beaches with your weighting.

Tromso
35match

Wins on nature and the outdoors 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.

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

Tromso in July

16 °Cdaytime high
9 °Cnight-time low
73 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
10 °Csea
24 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-5°0°5°10°15°20°25°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
EssaouiraTromso

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.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Essaouira: 1991-2020 normals, Essaouira (1.4 km from centre). Tromso: 1991-2020 normals, Tromso (0.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureEssaouiraTromso
Official languageArabic, Standard Moroccan TamazightNorwegian, Nynorsk, Bokmål, Sámi
CurrencyMoroccan Dirham (MAD)Norwegian Krone (NOK)
SocketsCE50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 19/112, ambulance 15, fire 15Police 112, ambulance 113, fire 110
Elevation11 m20 m
Main airportEssaouira-Mogador Airport (ESU)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsTromsø Airport (TOS)4 km from centre49 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureEssaouiraTromso
City population82,96279,943
People per km²16,59232
Museums within 10 km28
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 Tromso 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.