VacationSelector
The steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi, New Orleans
New OrleansThe steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi
The lighthouse and harbour at Sharm el-Sheikh, Sharm el-Sheikh
Sharm el-SheikhThe lighthouse and harbour at Sharm el-Sheikh

Photos: New Orleans by Bernard Spragg, CC0; Sharm el-Sheikh by Tanya Dedyukhina, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

New Orleans 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 New Orleans for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

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

Choose Sharm el-Sheikh for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • prices

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. New Orleans 14, Sharm el-Sheikh 87: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 73 points.
Food & drink. New Orleans 84, Sharm el-Sheikh 30: New Orleans leads by 54 points.
Culture & sights. New Orleans 67, Sharm el-Sheikh 12: New Orleans leads by 55 points.
Nightlife. New Orleans 85, Sharm el-Sheikh 42: New Orleans leads by 43 points.
Nature & outdoors. New Orleans 42, Sharm el-Sheikh 82: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 40 points.
Day trips. New Orleans 52, Sharm el-Sheikh 30: New Orleans leads by 22 points.
Good for families. New Orleans 55, Sharm el-Sheikh 62: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 7 points.
Getting around. New Orleans 55, Sharm el-Sheikh 22: New Orleans leads by 33 points.
Shopping & style. New Orleans 54, Sharm el-Sheikh 25: New Orleans leads by 29 points.
Affordability. New Orleans 40, Sharm el-Sheikh 74: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 34 points.
Live music & performing arts. New Orleans 80, Sharm el-Sheikh 10: New Orleans leads by 70 points.
Wellness & relaxation. New Orleans 25, Sharm el-Sheikh 50: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 25 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: New Orleans and Sharm el-Sheikh.

Your match

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

New Orleans
Best match
54match

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.

New Orleans in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
169 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Sharm el-Sheikh in July

38 °Cdaytime high
28 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
New OrleansSharm 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. New Orleans: 1991-2020 normals, New Orleans Airport (2.7 km from centre). Sharm el-Sheikh: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureNew OrleansSharm el-Sheikh
Official language-Arabic
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Egyptian Pound (EGP)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6, UTC-5 in summerUTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number911Police 122, ambulance 123, fire 180
Elevation-2 m1 m
Main airportLouis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)18 km from centre51 non-stop destinationsSharm El Sheikh International Airport (SSH)16 km from centre112 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureNew OrleansSharm el-Sheikh
City population383,99773,000
People per km²423-
Museums within 10 km161
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C7 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow New Orleans 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. 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.