VacationSelector
Galway Cathedral from the River Corrib, Galway
GalwayGalway Cathedral from the River Corrib
A cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan, San Juan
San JuanA cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan

Photos: Galway by Dieglop, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; San Juan by Mohan Nannapaneni, Pexels License.

Galway or San Juan?

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 Galway for

  • getting around
  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips

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

Choose San Juan for

  • beaches
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on San Juan’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. Galway 28, San Juan 84: San Juan leads by 56 points.
Food & drink. Galway 45, San Juan 66: San Juan leads by 21 points.
Culture & sights. Galway 33, San Juan 64: San Juan leads by 31 points.
Nightlife. Galway 50, San Juan 70: San Juan leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Galway 78, San Juan 74: Galway leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Galway 56, San Juan 52: Galway leads by 4 points.
Good for families. Galway 42, San Juan 58: San Juan leads by 16 points.
Getting around. Galway 58, San Juan 38: Galway leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Galway 38, San Juan 50: San Juan leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Galway 28, San Juan 38: San Juan leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. Galway 57, San Juan 55: Galway leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Galway 28, San Juan 40: San Juan leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Galway and San Juan.

Your match

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

Galway
45match

Wins on getting around and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

San Juan
Best match
57match

Wins on beaches and culture and sights with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Galway in July

20 °Cdaytime high
13 °Cnight-time low
91 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
16 °Csea
16 hdaylight a day

San Juan in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
GalwaySan Juan

Where the figures come from

Galway's temperatures are measured 64 km from the centre, at Shannon Airport.

Galway 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. Galway: 1991-2020 normals, Shannon Airport (64.2 km from centre). San Juan: 1991-2020 normals, San Juan / Int., Puerto Rico (12.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureGalwaySan Juan
Official languageEnglish, IrishSpanish, English
CurrencyEuro (EUR)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-4
Emergency number112911
Elevation25 m3 m
Main airportShannon Airport (SNN)64 km from centre39 non-stop destinationsLuis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU)12 km from centre59 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days21 days

By the numbers

MeasureGalwaySan Juan
City population83,456342,259
People per km²1,5632,847
Museums within 10 km418
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Galway or San Juan 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.