VacationSelector

Izmir or Thessaloniki?

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

Your match

Izmir
53
match

Wins on value for money with your weighting.

Thessaloniki
✓ Best match
59
match

Wins on nature & day trips and sights concentration with your weighting.

What matters to you?

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

The verdict

Choose Izmir if the trip is mainly sun and sea: it runs warmer through the year, high summer is close to rainless, and the beaches and the clubs sit near the centre.

Choose Thessaloniki if you want to walk to what you came for: far more notable places within walking distance of the centre, museums grouped close together, and a quarter of the surrounding land protected for days out of town.

Scoreboard

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

IzmirThessaloniki
Beaches & swimming. Izmir and Thessaloniki are level on 55.
IzmirThessaloniki
Score5555
Swim season months55
Beaches 10 km44
Coast distance1 km0 km
Water distance1 km0 km
Places to eat. Thessaloniki leads by 1 points.1
IzmirThessaloniki
Score4950
Restaurants within 2 km of centre770640
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km1215
Museums & heritage. Thessaloniki leads by 6 points.6
IzmirThessaloniki
Score4349
Museums within 10 km4734
Museums within 2 km of centre2722
Share of museums within 2 km %5765
Unesco sites within 50 km01
Nightlife. Thessaloniki leads by 5 points.5
IzmirThessaloniki
Score6267
Drinking venues within 4 km1,0281,407
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre695805
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %6857
Nightclubs within 4 km7061
Nature & day trips. Thessaloniki leads by 36 points.36
IzmirThessaloniki
Score2965
Protected land share 50 km %425
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %8483
Park area within 2 km62 hectares39 hectares
Good for families. Thessaloniki leads by 6 points.6
IzmirThessaloniki
Score3541
Tourist attractions within 2 km616
Park area within 2 km62 hectares39 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km21
Sights concentration. Thessaloniki leads by 16 points.16
IzmirThessaloniki
Score4056
Notable places within 2 km3998
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Izmir leads by 15 points.15
IzmirThessaloniki
Score8974
Price level global35.255.8
Daily budget€100€125
Year-round weather. Izmir and Thessaloniki are level on 72.
IzmirThessaloniki
Score7272
Monthly daytime high13 °C to 33.9 °C9.7 °C to 32.1 °C
Monthly rainfall1 mm to 127 mm21 mm to 56 mm
Dry months59
0255075100

Where they differ

Izmir's advantage is close-in green space: about twice as much park space near the centre as Thessaloniki. On cost, the two estimates behind them are national, €100 a day for Turkey and €125 for Greece, country-level figures rather than city ones.

Thessaloniki is the more concentrated city, with roughly three times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre. For days out, 25% of the surrounding land is protected against 4% around Izmir, and one UNESCO-listed place lies within day-trip reach.

Where they are alike

Both sit on the water: the sea is 0km from Thessaloniki's centre and 1km from Izmir's, both have 4 beaches nearby, and both have 5 months of sea at 21°C or more.

The weather year is close as well, a long warm season either side of a short cool one, with summer the dry half. Eating out is comparable too, Izmir with somewhat more restaurants near the centre, Thessaloniki with a wider range of kitchens.

Which traveller are you?

Swimmers can take either. Both have 4 beaches nearby and 5 months of sea at 21°C or more; Thessaloniki's water is warmer in late summer, Izmir's air warmer and drier for longer.

Anyone travelling for museums and old streets should take Thessaloniki: many more notable places within walking distance, museums grouped close to the centre, and a UNESCO-listed site reachable on a day trip.

Families are a split decision. Izmir has more park space near the centre and 2 theme parks within reach against 1, while Thessaloniki has about three times as many attractions near its centre and far more protected land for day trips.

What the numbers don't tell you

The daily budget is a single national estimate per country, €100 for Turkey and €125 for Greece: a price level for restaurants and hotels nationally, not a measurement of either city. A heavily visited city can sit further from its own national average than these two figures sit apart, so treat it as background rather than a deciding factor.

Matching beach counts say nothing about timing: Izmir's driest swimming weather comes with 34°C days, and the months either side bring more rain. Likewise, a quarter of the land around Thessaloniki being protected describes the region, not the city, and reaching it means travelling.

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
Izmir
13
14
17
21
27
31
34
34
29
24
19
14
Thessaloniki
10
11
15
19
25
30
32
32
27
21
16
11
Sea temperature, °C
Izmir
16
16
16
17
19
22
23
24
23
21
19
17
Thessaloniki
14
13
13
15
19
23
26
27
25
21
18
15
Rainfall, mm
Izmir
119
107
77
51
33
13
1
4
22
55
96
127
Thessaloniki
35
32
38
36
44
30
23
21
33
41
38
56
Daylight, hours per day
Izmir
10
11
12
13
14
15
15
14
13
11
10
10
Thessaloniki
10
11
12
13
14
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Izmir
5
5
7
8
10
11
13
12
10
8
6
4
Thessaloniki
4
4
6
6
9
11
11
10
8
6
4
3

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Izmir: 1991-2020 normals, Izmir (3.4 km from centre). Thessaloniki: 1991-2020 normals, Thessaloniki Airport (14 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Izmir is at its best in May, when highs reach 27°C, and again in September, with the sea near 23°C and rain still light. Its high summer is all but rainless, 1-4mm, but days reach 34°C.

Thessaloniki is the steadier choice outside summer: nine months at 40mm or less, against Izmir's wet run of 96-127mm from November to January. Late summer is its own peak, with the sea at its warmest, 27°C.

Getting there

Flying fromIzmirThessaloniki
IstanbulIST, SAW
1 h 5 m
€46-55
ADB · 13 km
1 h 15 m
€151-156
SKG · 14 km
AthensATH
1 h 0 m
no fares
SMI · 83 km
1 h 0 m
€97-118
SKG · 14 km
DusseldorfDUS, NRN
3 h 10 m
no fares
ADB · 13 km
2 h 40 m
€127-199
1 stop
SKG · 14 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
3 h 45 m
€119-184
ADB · 13 km
3 h 15 m
€95-156
SKG · 14 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
3 h 0 m
€204-238
1 stop
ADB · 13 km
2 h 30 m
€119-127
SKG · 14 km
MunichMUC
2 h 40 m
€185-288
1 stop
ADB · 13 km
2 h 10 m
€188-242
1 stop
SKG · 14 km
StuttgartSTR
2 h 50 m
€165-186
1 stop
ADB · 13 km
2 h 20 m
€217
SKG · 14 km
BerlinBER
2 h 55 m
€177-214
1 stop
ADB · 13 km
2 h 25 m
€156-243
1 stop
SKG · 14 km
HeraklionHER
1 h 10 m
no fares
MJT · 86 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
SKG · 14 km
Tel Aviv YafoTLV
1 h 50 m
no fares
ADB · 13 km
2 h 20 m
€208-315
1 stop
SKG · 14 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 2026-08 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

MeasureIzmirThessaloniki
Official languageTurkishGreek
CurrencyTurkish Lira (TRY)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+3UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation2 m6 m
Main airportAdnan Menderes International Airport (ADB)13 km from centre120 non-stop destinationsThessaloniki Macedonia International Airport (SKG)14 km from centre88 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureIzmirThessaloniki
City population4,493,242309,617
People per km²4,76016,042
Museums within 10 km2931
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Distinct cuisines in the centre2045
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 months5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Izmir or Thessaloniki 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). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.

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.