VacationSelector
The Johannesburg skyline and the Hillbrow Tower, Johannesburg
JohannesburgThe Johannesburg skyline and the Hillbrow Tower
The lighthouse and harbour at Sharm el-Sheikh, Sharm el-Sheikh
Sharm el-SheikhThe lighthouse and harbour at Sharm el-Sheikh

Photos: Johannesburg by K, Pexels License; Sharm el-Sheikh by Tanya Dedyukhina, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Johannesburg or Sharm el-Sheikh?

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 Johannesburg for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • shopping

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

Choose Sharm el-Sheikh for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Sharm el-Sheikh’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. Johannesburg 5, Sharm el-Sheikh 87: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 82 points.
Food & drink. Johannesburg 58, Sharm el-Sheikh 30: Johannesburg leads by 28 points.
Culture & sights. Johannesburg 56, Sharm el-Sheikh 12: Johannesburg leads by 44 points.
Nightlife. Johannesburg 62, Sharm el-Sheikh 42: Johannesburg leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Johannesburg 55, Sharm el-Sheikh 82: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 27 points.
Day trips. Johannesburg 52, Sharm el-Sheikh 30: Johannesburg leads by 22 points.
Good for families. Johannesburg 42, Sharm el-Sheikh 62: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 20 points.
Getting around. Johannesburg 18, Sharm el-Sheikh 22: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Johannesburg 58, Sharm el-Sheikh 25: Johannesburg leads by 33 points.
Affordability. Johannesburg 72, Sharm el-Sheikh 74: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Johannesburg 55, Sharm el-Sheikh 10: Johannesburg leads by 45 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Johannesburg 28, Sharm el-Sheikh 50: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 22 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Johannesburg and Sharm el-Sheikh.

Your match

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

Johannesburg
Best match
47match

Wins on live music and the arts and culture and sights with your weighting.

Sharm el-Sheikh
44match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Johannesburg in July

19 °Cdaytime high
4 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
No seasea
11 hdaylight a day

Sharm el-Sheikh in July

38 °Cdaytime high
28 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
JohannesburgSharm el-Sheikh

Where the figures come from

Sharm el-Sheikh has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Johannesburg: 2005-2019 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Johannesburg B / Roosevelt Park (7.3 km from centre). Sharm el-Sheikh: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureJohannesburgSharm el-Sheikh
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign LanguageArabic
CurrencyRand (ZAR)Egyptian Pound (EGP)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number112Police 122, ambulance 123, fire 180
Elevation1,753 m1 m
Main airportO.R. Tambo International Airport (JNB)22 km from centre84 non-stop destinationsSharm El Sheikh International Airport (SSH)16 km from centre112 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureJohannesburgSharm el-Sheikh
City population4,803,26273,000
People per km²2,922-
Museums within 10 km141
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Johannesburg or Sharm el-Sheikh 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). 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.