VacationSelector
The blue gate of Bab Bou Jeloud, Fes
FesThe blue gate of Bab Bou Jeloud
A cobbled street of painted houses in the old town, San Miguel de Allende
San Miguel de AllendeA cobbled street of painted houses in the old town

Photos: Fes by Ideophagous, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; San Miguel de Allende by Russ Bowling, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Fes or San Miguel de Allende?

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
  • shopping

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

Choose San Miguel de Allende for

  • nightlife
  • day trips
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on San Miguel de Allende’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 Miguel de Allende 4: Fes leads by 1 points.
Food & drink. Fes and San Miguel de Allende are level on 62.
Culture & sights. Fes 80, San Miguel de Allende 62: Fes leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. Fes 12, San Miguel de Allende 38: San Miguel de Allende leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Fes 52, San Miguel de Allende 40: Fes leads by 12 points.
Day trips. Fes 62, San Miguel de Allende 77: San Miguel de Allende leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Fes 22, San Miguel de Allende 32: San Miguel de Allende leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Fes 40, San Miguel de Allende 48: San Miguel de Allende leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Fes 68, San Miguel de Allende 55: Fes leads by 13 points.
Affordability. Fes 80, San Miguel de Allende 50: Fes leads by 30 points.
Live music & performing arts. Fes 32, San Miguel de Allende 40: San Miguel de Allende leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Fes 70, San Miguel de Allende 66: Fes leads by 4 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Fes and San Miguel de Allende.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Fes
49match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

San Miguel de Allende
48match

Wins on nightlife and day trips 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

San Miguel de Allende in July

29 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
132 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
FesSan Miguel de Allende

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.

San Miguel de Allende's temperatures are measured 54 km from the centre, at Guanajuato, Gto..

San Miguel de Allende 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.

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 Miguel de Allende: 1991-2020 normals, Guanajuato, Gto. (53.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureFesSan Miguel de Allende
Official languageArabic, Standard Moroccan TamazightSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyMoroccan Dirham (MAD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCE50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1UTC-6
Emergency numberPolice 19/112, ambulance 15, fire 15911
Elevation408 m1,900 m
Main airportFes Saïss International Airport (FEZ)13 km from centre35 non-stop destinationsGuanajuato International Airport (BJX)77 km from centre22 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureFesSan Miguel de Allende
City population1,167,84269,811
People per km²3,650-
Museums within 10 km22
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Fes or San Miguel de Allende 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.