VacationSelector
The blue gate of Bab Bou Jeloud, Fes
FesThe blue gate of Bab Bou Jeloud
The wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind, Queenstown
QueenstownThe wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind

Photos: Fes by Ideophagous, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Queenstown by Robert Linsdell, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Fes or Queenstown?

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
  • prices
  • shopping

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

Choose Queenstown for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • families
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Queenstown’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, Queenstown 20: Queenstown leads by 15 points.
Food & drink. Fes 62, Queenstown 45: Fes leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Fes 80, Queenstown 12: Fes leads by 68 points.
Nightlife. Fes 12, Queenstown 42: Queenstown leads by 30 points.
Nature & outdoors. Fes 52, Queenstown 97: Queenstown leads by 45 points.
Day trips. Fes 62, Queenstown 50: Fes leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Fes 22, Queenstown 60: Queenstown leads by 38 points.
Getting around. Fes 40, Queenstown 45: Queenstown leads by 5 points.
Shopping & style. Fes 68, Queenstown 28: Fes leads by 40 points.
Affordability. Fes 80, Queenstown 20: Fes leads by 60 points.
Live music & performing arts. Fes 32, Queenstown 14: Fes leads by 18 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Fes 70, Queenstown 42: Fes leads by 28 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Fes and Queenstown.

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 prices with your weighting.

Queenstown
40match

Wins on nature and the outdoors 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
14 hdaylight a day

Queenstown in July

6 °Cdaytime high
-1 °Cnight-time low
115 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
9 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
FesQueenstown

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.

Queenstown has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

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). Queenstown: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureFesQueenstown
Official languageArabic, Standard Moroccan TamazightEnglish, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyMoroccan Dirham (MAD)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsCE50 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+1UTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 19/112, ambulance 15, fire 15111
Elevation408 m324 m
Main airportFes Saïss International Airport (FEZ)13 km from centre35 non-stop destinationsQueenstown Airport (ZQN)7 km from centre7 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureFesQueenstown
City population1,167,84229,000
People per km²3,650-
Museums within 10 km20
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Fes or Queenstown 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.