VacationSelector
The blue gate of Bab Bou Jeloud, Fes
FesThe blue gate of Bab Bou Jeloud
The Winchester Mystery House, San Jose
San JoseThe Winchester Mystery House

Photos: Fes by Ideophagous, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; San Jose by Roxanna Salceda, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Fes or San Jose?

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
  • culture and sights
  • wellness

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

Choose San Jose for

  • families
  • beaches
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on San Jose’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, San Jose 30: San Jose leads by 25 points.
Food & drink. Fes 62, San Jose 56: Fes leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Fes 80, San Jose 36: Fes leads by 44 points.
Nightlife. Fes 12, San Jose 33: San Jose leads by 21 points.
Nature & outdoors. Fes 52, San Jose 72: San Jose leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Fes 62, San Jose 78: San Jose leads by 16 points.
Good for families. Fes 22, San Jose 65: San Jose leads by 43 points.
Getting around. Fes 40, San Jose 30: Fes leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Fes 68, San Jose 48: Fes leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Fes 80, San Jose 20: Fes leads by 60 points.
Live music & performing arts. Fes 32, San Jose 38: San Jose leads by 6 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Fes 70, San Jose 30: Fes leads by 40 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Fes and San Jose.

Your match

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

Fes
Best match
49match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

San Jose
45match

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
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

San Jose in July

27 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
14 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080JFMAMJJASOND
FesSan Jose

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). San Jose: 1991-2020 normals, San Jose / Santa Clara Trailer Village (8.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureFesSan Jose
Official languageArabic, Standard Moroccan Tamazight-
CurrencyMoroccan Dirham (MAD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCE50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 19/112, ambulance 15, fire 15911
Elevation408 m25 m
Main airportFes Saïss International Airport (FEZ)13 km from centre35 non-stop destinationsMineta San Jose International Airport (SJC)8 km from centre38 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureFesSan Jose
City population1,167,8421,013,240
People per km²3,6502,167
Museums within 10 km219
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C-None

Where else could you go?

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