VacationSelector
The blue gate of Bab Bou Jeloud, Fes
FesThe blue gate of Bab Bou Jeloud
The white beach below the high-rise hotels, Orange Beach
Orange BeachThe white beach below the high-rise hotels

Photos: Fes by Ideophagous, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Orange Beach by WeaponizingArchitecture, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Fes or Orange Beach?

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 Fes for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • prices

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

Choose Orange Beach for

  • beaches
  • families
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Orange Beach’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. Fes 5, Orange Beach 86: Orange Beach leads by 81 points.
Food & drink. Fes 62, Orange Beach 40: Fes leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Fes 80, Orange Beach 7: Fes leads by 73 points.
Nightlife. Fes 12, Orange Beach 30: Orange Beach leads by 18 points.
Nature & outdoors. Fes 52, Orange Beach 60: Orange Beach leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Fes 62, Orange Beach 50: Fes leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Fes 22, Orange Beach 75: Orange Beach leads by 53 points.
Getting around. Fes 40, Orange Beach 15: Fes leads by 25 points.
Shopping & style. Fes 68, Orange Beach 25: Fes leads by 43 points.
Affordability. Fes 80, Orange Beach 38: Fes leads by 42 points.
Live music & performing arts. Fes and Orange Beach are level on 32.
Wellness & relaxation. Fes 70, Orange Beach 32: Fes leads by 38 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Fes and Orange Beach.

Your match

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

Fes
Best match
49match

Wins on culture and sights and shopping with your weighting.

Orange Beach
41match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Fes in July

36 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Orange Beach in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
200 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
FesOrange Beach

Where the figures come from

Fes's station stands 171 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

Fes 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.

Fes's sunshine is measured 52 km from the centre, at Meknes.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Fes: 1999-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Fes-Sais (12.4 km from centre). Orange Beach: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Gulf Shores / Bay Village Mobile Home Park (10.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureFesOrange Beach
Official languageArabic, Standard Moroccan Tamazight-
CurrencyMoroccan Dirham (MAD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCE50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1UTC-6, UTC-5 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 19/112, ambulance 15, fire 15911
Elevation408 m4 m
Main airportFes Saïss International Airport (FEZ)13 km from centre35 non-stop destinationsPensacola International Airport (PNS)41 km from centre27 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureFesOrange Beach
City population1,167,8428,095
People per km²3,650196
Museums within 10 km20
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C-8 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Fes or Orange Beach 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. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.