VacationSelector

Malaga or Ubud?

Two destinations compared in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

The cathedral from the gardens, Malaga
Malaga

Photo: Holger Uwe Schmitt, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped

Rice terraces and palms at Tegallalang, Ubud
Ubud

Photo: Pinterpandai, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped

Your match

Malaga
✓ Best match
64
match

Wins on getting around and nightlife with your weighting.

Ubud
54
match

Wins on wellness and prices with your weighting.

What matters to you?

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

Scoreboard

Our verdict on each category, scored 0 to 100 against fixed benchmark cities.

MalagaUbud
Beaches & swimming. Malaga leads by 37 points.37
Food & drink. Malaga leads by 13 points.13
Culture & sights. Malaga leads by 7 points.7
Nightlife. Malaga leads by 48 points.48
Nature & outdoors. Ubud leads by 3 points.3
Day trips. Malaga leads by 19 points.19
Good for families. Malaga leads by 26 points.26
Getting around. Malaga leads by 60 points.60
Shopping & style. Malaga leads by 5 points.5
Affordability. Ubud leads by 27 points.27
Live music & performing arts. Ubud leads by 10 points.10
Wellness & relaxation. Ubud leads by 54 points.54
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Malaga and Ubud.

When should you go?

Pick the month you can travel and see both cities side by side. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Climate figures for July
JulyMalagaUbud
Daytime high31 °C29 °C
Night-time low21 °C24 °C
Rainfall in the month0 mm27 mm
Sunshine12 hours a day9 hours a day
Sea temperature22 °C27 °C
Daylight14 hours a day12 hours a day

The whole year

Each row is shaded against that destination’s own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that figure 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
Malaga
17
18
20
22
25
29
31
32
28
24
20
18
Ubud
31
31
31
31
31
30
29
29
30
31
32
31
Sea temperature, °C
Malaga
15
15
15
16
18
20
22
23
22
20
17
16
Ubud
29
29
29
29
28
28
27
26
27
27
28
29
Rainfall, mm
Malaga
62
55
66
41
23
4
0
3
25
60
78
88
Ubud
396
289
222
125
76
38
27
12
30
74
132
295
Daylight, hours per day
Malaga
10
11
12
13
14
15
14
14
13
11
10
10
Ubud
13
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
13
13
Sunshine, hours per day
Malaga
6
6
7
8
10
11
12
11
8
7
6
5
Ubud
7
6
7
8
9
8
9
9
9
9
8
6

Where the figures come from

Ubud's temperatures are measured 29 km from the centre, at Denpasar / Ngurah-Rai.

Ubud's station stands 209 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Malaga: 1991-2020 normals, Malaga / Aeropuerto (8.2 km from centre). Ubud: 1991-2020 normals, Denpasar / Ngurah-Rai (29 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromMalagaUbud
AmsterdamAMS
2 h 55 m
€146-177
AGP · 8 km
15 h 0 m
€615-646
DPS · 29 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
2 h 50 m
€124-199
1 stop
AGP · 8 km
14 h 45 m
€655-1139
1 stop
DPS · 29 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
4 h 5 m
€185-196
AGP · 8 km
12 h 50 m
€633-726
DPS · 29 km
Abu DhabiAUH
7 h 25 m
no fares
AGP · 8 km
9 h 30 m
€560-729
DPS · 29 km
WarsawWAW, WMI
3 h 45 m
no fares
AGP · 8 km
13 h 40 m
€782-910
3 stops
DPS · 29 km
DohaDOH
7 h 5 m
no fares
AGP · 8 km
9 h 55 m
€774-911
2 stops
DPS · 29 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

MeasureMalagaUbud
Official languageSpanishIndonesian
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Rupiah (IDR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+8
Emergency number112112
Elevation18 m210 m
Main airportMálaga-Costa del Sol Airport (AGP)8 km from centre166 non-stop destinationsDenpasar I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport (DPS)29 km from centre63 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days-

By the numbers

MeasureMalagaUbud
City population599,063-
People per km²1,517-
Museums within 10 km3214
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C3 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Malaga or Ubud somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

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. 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. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate and flight figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-27. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.