VacationSelector
La Major cathedral from the harbour, Marseille
MarseilleLa Major cathedral from the harbour
The Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock, Petra
PetraThe Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock

Photos: Marseille by Charlotte Noblet, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Petra by Yasir Gürbüz, Pexels License.

Marseille or Petra?

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 Marseille for

  • beaches
  • day trips
  • nightlife

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

Choose Petra for

  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Petra’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. Marseille 72, Petra 5: Marseille leads by 67 points.
Food & drink. Marseille 67, Petra 22: Marseille leads by 45 points.
Culture & sights. Marseille 63, Petra 85: Petra leads by 22 points.
Nightlife. Marseille 57, Petra 5: Marseille leads by 52 points.
Nature & outdoors. Marseille 83, Petra 78: Marseille leads by 5 points.
Day trips. Marseille 86, Petra 30: Marseille leads by 56 points.
Good for families. Marseille 50, Petra 25: Marseille leads by 25 points.
Getting around. Marseille 57, Petra 25: Marseille leads by 32 points.
Shopping & style. Marseille 47, Petra 18: Marseille leads by 29 points.
Affordability. Marseille and Petra are level on 45.
Live music & performing arts. Marseille 56, Petra 10: Marseille leads by 46 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Marseille 37, Petra 28: Marseille leads by 9 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Marseille and Petra.

Your match

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

Marseille
Best match
60match

Wins on beaches and day trips with your weighting.

Petra
31match

Wins on culture and sights with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Marseille in July

31 °Cdaytime high
20 °Cnight-time low
11 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
21 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Petra in July

35 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
MarseillePetra

Where the figures come from

Petra's temperatures are measured 34 km from the centre, at Ma'An.

Petra's station stands 219 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

Petra 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. Marseille: 1991-2020 normals, Marseille / Marignane (20.6 km from centre). Petra: 1991-2020 normals, Ma'An (33.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMarseillePetra
Official languageFrenchArabic
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Jordanian Dinar (JOD)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzBCFGJ230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+3
Emergency number112911
Elevation0 m850 m
Main airportMarseille Provence Airport (MRS)21 km from centre126 non-stop destinationsKing Hussein International Airport (AQJ)90 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days-

By the numbers

MeasureMarseillePetra
City population886,040-
People per km²3,683-
Museums within 10 km272
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C2 months-

Where else could you go?

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

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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.