VacationSelector
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera
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: Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License; San Miguel de Allende by Russ Bowling, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Kyoto 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 Kyoto for

  • families
  • culture and sights
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose San Miguel de Allende for

  • nightlife

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. Kyoto 15, San Miguel de Allende 4: Kyoto leads by 11 points.
Food & drink. Kyoto 85, San Miguel de Allende 62: Kyoto leads by 23 points.
Culture & sights. Kyoto 96, San Miguel de Allende 62: Kyoto leads by 34 points.
Nightlife. Kyoto 35, San Miguel de Allende 38: San Miguel de Allende leads by 3 points.
Nature & outdoors. Kyoto 70, San Miguel de Allende 40: Kyoto leads by 30 points.
Day trips. Kyoto 96, San Miguel de Allende 77: Kyoto leads by 19 points.
Good for families. Kyoto 68, San Miguel de Allende 32: Kyoto leads by 36 points.
Getting around. Kyoto 72, San Miguel de Allende 48: Kyoto leads by 24 points.
Shopping & style. Kyoto 72, San Miguel de Allende 55: Kyoto leads by 17 points.
Affordability. Kyoto and San Miguel de Allende are level on 50.
Live music & performing arts. Kyoto 60, San Miguel de Allende 40: Kyoto leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Kyoto 70, San Miguel de Allende 66: Kyoto leads by 4 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Kyoto and San Miguel de Allende.

Your match

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

Kyoto
Best match
66match

Wins on families and culture and sights with your weighting.

San Miguel de Allende
48match

Wins on nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Kyoto in July

31 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
225 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
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
No seasea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
KyotoSan Miguel de Allende

Where the figures come from

Kyoto's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Osaka.

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. Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 km from centre). San Miguel de Allende: 1991-2020 normals, Guanajuato, Gto. (53.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureKyotoSan Miguel de Allende
Official languageJapaneseSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyYen (JPY)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the regionAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+9UTC-6
Emergency numberPolice 110, fire 119911
Elevation51 m1,900 m
Main airportKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinationsGuanajuato International Airport (BJX)77 km from centre22 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureKyotoSan Miguel de Allende
City population1,463,72369,811
People per km²1,768-
Museums within 10 km772
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km42
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Kyoto or San Miguel de Allende somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national 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). 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.

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.