VacationSelector

Helsinki or San Sebastian?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Helsinki
✓ Best match
57
match

Wins on good for families and sights concentration with your weighting.

San Sebastian
51
match

Wins on value for money and nature & day trips with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

HelsinkiSan Sebastian
Beaches & swimming. Helsinki leads by 5 points.5
HelsinkiSan Sebastian
Score6055
Swim season months02
Beaches 10 km15710
Coast distance0 km0 km
Water distance0 km0 km
Places to eat. Helsinki leads by 16 points.16
HelsinkiSan Sebastian
Score7155
Restaurants within 2 km of centre1,005472
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km3826
Museums & heritage. Helsinki leads by 10 points.10
HelsinkiSan Sebastian
Score4939
Museums within 10 km5717
Museums within 2 km of centre237
Share of museums within 2 km %4041
Unesco sites within 50 km13
Nightlife. Helsinki leads by 16 points.16
HelsinkiSan Sebastian
Score5640
Drinking venues within 4 km807388
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre607338
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7587
Nightclubs within 4 km4012
Nature & day trips. San Sebastian leads by 14 points.14
HelsinkiSan Sebastian
Score4256
Protected land share 50 km %311
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %5352
Park area within 2 km185 hectares70 hectares
Good for families. Helsinki leads by 28 points.28
HelsinkiSan Sebastian
Score5830
Tourist attractions within 2 km205
Park area within 2 km185 hectares70 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km11
Sights concentration. Helsinki leads by 19 points.19
HelsinkiSan Sebastian
Score7354
Notable places within 2 km25789
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. San Sebastian leads by 15 points.15
HelsinkiSan Sebastian
Score5671
Price level global81.660.8
Daily budget€184€122
Year-round weather. San Sebastian leads by 10 points.10
HelsinkiSan Sebastian
Score4858
Monthly daytime high-1.5 °C to 21.9 °C11.2 °C to 22.9 °C
Monthly rainfall32 mm to 84 mm92 mm to 203 mm
Dry months30
0255075100

When should you go?

The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Helsinki
-1
-1
2
8
15
19
22
21
15
9
4
1
San Sebastian
11
12
14
15
18
20
22
23
21
19
14
12
Sea temperature, °C
Helsinki
2
1
1
2
6
11
16
17
14
10
7
4
San Sebastian
13
12
13
14
16
19
21
22
21
18
16
14
Rainfall, mm
Helsinki
54
38
35
32
41
56
58
84
55
75
70
59
San Sebastian
151
125
119
126
122
96
92
109
117
155
203
153
Daylight, hours per day
Helsinki
7
9
12
15
17
19
18
16
13
10
8
6
San Sebastian
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Helsinki
1
2
5
7
9
9
9
8
5
3
1
1
San Sebastian
3
4
5
5
7
6
7
6
6
5
3
3

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Helsinki: 1991-2020 normals, Helsinki Kaisaniemi / Harju (1.6 km from centre). San Sebastian: 1991-2020 normals, San Sebastian / Igueldo (6.1 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromHelsinkiSan Sebastian
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
2 h 55 m
€187-219
1 stop
HEL · 16 km
1 h 30 m
€129-164
BIQ · 40 km
AmsterdamAMS
2 h 25 m
€251-299
1 stop
HEL · 16 km
2 h 0 m
€196-210
1 stop
BIO · 75 km
MunichMUC
2 h 30 m
no fares
HEL · 16 km
2 h 10 m
€203-242
1 stop
BIO · 75 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
2 h 30 m
€203-241
1 stop
HEL · 16 km
2 h 0 m
no fares
BIO · 75 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
2 h 50 m
€112-224
HEL · 16 km
1 h 45 m
€126-289
1 stop
BIQ · 40 km
StockholmARN, BMA, NYO, VST
1 h 10 m
€62-63
HEL · 16 km
3 h 15 m
no fares
BIQ · 40 km
PalmaPMI
3 h 55 m
no fares
HEL · 16 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
BIO · 75 km
AlicanteALC
4 h 15 m
€194-214
1 stop
HEL · 16 km
1 h 20 m
€81-137
BIO · 75 km
MadridMAD
4 h 10 m
no fares
HEL · 16 km
1 h 5 m
€76-169
EAS · 16 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
8 h 25 m
no fares
HEL · 16 km
7 h 20 m
no fares
BIO · 75 km

The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-09 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.

Before you go

MeasureHelsinkiSan Sebastian
Official languageFinnish, SwedishSpanish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation17 m6 m
Main airportHelsinki Vantaa Airport (HEL)16 km from centre120 non-stop destinationsSan Sebastián Airport (EAS)16 km from centre11 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureHelsinkiSan Sebastian
City population694,392189,866
People per km²3,2393,118
Museums within 10 km7414
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km13
Distinct cuisines in the centre7845
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone2 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Helsinki or San Sebastian somewhere new.

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.