VacationSelector

Faro or San Sebastian?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Faro
47
match

Wins on year-round weather and beaches & swimming with your weighting.

San Sebastian
✓ Best match
51
match

Wins on sights concentration and nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

FaroSan Sebastian
Beaches & swimming. Faro leads by 6 points.6
FaroSan Sebastian
Score6155
Swim season months32
Beaches 10 km1310
Coast distance0 km0 km
Water distance0 km0 km
Places to eat. San Sebastian leads by 11 points.11
FaroSan Sebastian
Score4455
Restaurants within 2 km of centre255472
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km2226
Museums & heritage. San Sebastian leads by 17 points.17
FaroSan Sebastian
Score2239
Museums within 10 km917
Museums within 2 km of centre87
Share of museums within 2 km %8941
Unesco sites within 50 km03
Nightlife. San Sebastian leads by 19 points.19
FaroSan Sebastian
Score2140
Drinking venues within 4 km143388
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre123338
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8687
Nightclubs within 4 km812
Nature & day trips. Faro leads by 1 points.1
FaroSan Sebastian
Score5756
Protected land share 50 km %1111
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %4252
Park area within 2 km34 hectares70 hectares
Good for families. Faro leads by 6 points.6
FaroSan Sebastian
Score3630
Tourist attractions within 2 km105
Park area within 2 km34 hectares70 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km21
Sights concentration. San Sebastian leads by 32 points.32
FaroSan Sebastian
Score2254
Notable places within 2 km1489
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Faro leads by 3 points.3
FaroSan Sebastian
Score7471
Price level global55.960.8
Daily budget€109€122
Year-round weather. Faro leads by 25 points.25
FaroSan Sebastian
Score8358
Monthly daytime high16.3 °C to 29 °C11.2 °C to 22.9 °C
Monthly rainfall1 mm to 102 mm92 mm to 203 mm
Dry months60
0255075100

When should you go?

The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Faro
16
17
19
21
24
27
29
29
26
23
19
17
San Sebastian
11
12
14
15
18
20
22
23
21
19
14
12
Sea temperature, °C
Faro
17
16
16
17
18
20
21
22
21
21
19
17
San Sebastian
13
12
13
14
16
19
21
22
21
18
16
14
Rainfall, mm
Faro
55
39
44
40
23
6
1
5
28
57
75
102
San Sebastian
151
125
119
126
122
96
92
109
117
155
203
153
Daylight, hours per day
Faro
10
11
12
13
14
15
14
14
13
11
10
10
San Sebastian
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Faro
6
6
8
9
10
12
12
11
9
8
6
6
San Sebastian
3
4
5
5
7
6
7
6
6
5
3
3

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Faro: 1991-2020 normals, Faro / Aeroporto (2.8 km from centre). San Sebastian: 1991-2020 normals, San Sebastian / Igueldo (6.1 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromFaroSan Sebastian
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
2 h 40 m
no fares
FAO · 3 km
1 h 45 m
€126-289
1 stop
BIQ · 40 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
2 h 30 m
€126-204
1 stop
FAO · 3 km
1 h 30 m
€129-164
BIQ · 40 km
AmsterdamAMS
3 h 0 m
€144-189
1 stop
FAO · 3 km
2 h 0 m
€196-210
1 stop
BIO · 75 km
DublinDUB
2 h 50 m
€75-114
FAO · 3 km
2 h 0 m
no fares
BIQ · 40 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
3 h 0 m
€137-201
1 stop
FAO · 3 km
2 h 0 m
no fares
BIO · 75 km
MunichMUC
3 h 5 m
no fares
FAO · 3 km
2 h 10 m
€203-242
1 stop
BIO · 75 km
ManchesterMAN
2 h 50 m
no fares
FAO · 3 km
2 h 0 m
no fares
BIO · 75 km
MadridMAD
1 h 20 m
€46-52
FAO · 3 km
1 h 5 m
€76-169
EAS · 16 km
MarrakechRAK
1 h 20 m
no fares
FAO · 3 km
2 h 15 m
no fares
BIO · 75 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
7 h 15 m
no fares
FAO · 3 km
7 h 20 m
no fares
BIO · 75 km

The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-09 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.

Before you go

MeasureFaroSan Sebastian
Official languagePortugueseSpanish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation10 m6 m
Main airportFaro - Gago Coutinho International Airport (FAO)3 km from centre91 non-stop destinationsSan Sebastián Airport (EAS)16 km from centre11 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureFaroSan Sebastian
City population64,560189,866
People per km²3193,118
Museums within 10 km214
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km03
Distinct cuisines in the centre3445
Swim season, months above 21 °C3 months2 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Faro or San Sebastian somewhere new.

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.