VacationSelector
The blue gate of Bab Bou Jeloud, Fes
FesThe blue gate of Bab Bou Jeloud
Parliament Hill across the Ottawa River, Ottawa
OttawaParliament Hill across the Ottawa River

Photos: Fes by Ideophagous, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Ottawa by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Fes or Ottawa?

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

  • prices
  • shopping
  • culture and sights

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

Choose Ottawa for

  • families
  • beaches
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Ottawa’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, Ottawa 35: Ottawa leads by 30 points.
Food & drink. Fes 62, Ottawa 45: Fes leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Fes 80, Ottawa 62: Fes leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. Fes 12, Ottawa 35: Ottawa leads by 23 points.
Nature & outdoors. Fes 52, Ottawa 68: Ottawa leads by 16 points.
Day trips. Fes 62, Ottawa 55: Fes leads by 7 points.
Good for families. Fes 22, Ottawa 68: Ottawa leads by 46 points.
Getting around. Fes 40, Ottawa 62: Ottawa leads by 22 points.
Shopping & style. Fes 68, Ottawa 40: Fes leads by 28 points.
Affordability. Fes 80, Ottawa 40: Fes leads by 40 points.
Live music & performing arts. Fes 32, Ottawa 52: Ottawa leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Fes 70, Ottawa 55: Fes leads by 15 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Fes and Ottawa.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Fes
49match

Wins on prices and shopping with your weighting.

Ottawa
51match

Wins on families and beaches 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
14 hdaylight a day

Ottawa in July

27 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
82 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
FesOttawa

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). Ottawa: 1991-2020 normals, Ottawa CDA RCS (5.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureFesOttawa
Official languageArabic, Standard Moroccan TamazightFrench, English
CurrencyMoroccan Dirham (MAD)Canadian Dollar (CAD)
SocketsCE50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 19/112, ambulance 15, fire 15911
Elevation408 m70 m
Main airportFes Saïss International Airport (FEZ)13 km from centre35 non-stop destinationsOttawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport (YOW)12 km from centre46 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureFesOttawa
City population1,167,8421,017,449
People per km²3,650366
Museums within 10 km220
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Fes or Ottawa 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. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.