VacationSelector
The tusks over Moi Avenue, Mombasa
MombasaThe tusks over Moi Avenue
A cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan, San Juan
San JuanA cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan

Photos: Mombasa by Rob Oo, CC BY 2.0, cropped; San Juan by Mohan Nannapaneni, Pexels License.

Mombasa or San Juan?

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 Mombasa for

  • prices

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

Choose San Juan for

  • live music and the arts
  • nightlife
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on San Juan’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. Mombasa 82, San Juan 84: San Juan leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Mombasa 60, San Juan 66: San Juan leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Mombasa 55, San Juan 64: San Juan leads by 9 points.
Nightlife. Mombasa 46, San Juan 70: San Juan leads by 24 points.
Nature & outdoors. Mombasa and San Juan are level on 74.
Day trips. Mombasa 45, San Juan 52: San Juan leads by 7 points.
Good for families. Mombasa 45, San Juan 58: San Juan leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Mombasa 30, San Juan 38: San Juan leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Mombasa 35, San Juan 50: San Juan leads by 15 points.
Affordability. Mombasa 70, San Juan 38: Mombasa leads by 32 points.
Live music & performing arts. Mombasa 22, San Juan 55: San Juan leads by 33 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Mombasa and San Juan are level on 40.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Mombasa and San Juan.

Your match

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

Mombasa
50match

Wins on prices with your weighting.

San Juan
Best match
57match

Wins on live music and the arts and nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Mombasa in July

28 °Cdaytime high
20 °Cnight-time low
63 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
26 °Csea
12 hdaylight a day

San Juan in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
MombasaSan Juan

Where the figures come from

Mombasa 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. Mombasa: 1991-2020 normals, Mombasa (5.8 km from centre). San Juan: 1991-2020 normals, San Juan / Int., Puerto Rico (12.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMombasaSan Juan
Official languageEnglish, SwahiliSpanish, English
CurrencyKenyan Shilling (KES)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsG240 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+3UTC-4
Emergency numberPolice 112/999, ambulance 112/999, fire 112/999911
Elevation50 m3 m
Main airportMoi International Airport (MBA)8 km from centre22 non-stop destinationsLuis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU)12 km from centre59 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days21 days

By the numbers

MeasureMombasaSan Juan
City population1,208,333342,259
People per km²4,1002,847
Museums within 10 km018
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Mombasa or San Juan 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). 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.

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.