VacationSelector
The Botanical Building, Balboa Park, San Diego
San DiegoThe Botanical Building, Balboa Park
Stortorget in Gamla stan, Stockholm
StockholmStortorget in Gamla stan

Photos: San Diego by Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Stockholm by Jorge Franganillo, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

San Diego or Stockholm?

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 San Diego for

  • beaches
  • families
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Stockholm for

  • getting around
  • culture and sights
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Stockholm’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. San Diego 72, Stockholm 40: San Diego leads by 32 points.
Food & drink. San Diego 62, Stockholm 64: Stockholm leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. San Diego 50, Stockholm 77: Stockholm leads by 27 points.
Nightlife. San Diego 48, Stockholm 57: Stockholm leads by 9 points.
Nature & outdoors. San Diego 77, Stockholm 72: San Diego leads by 5 points.
Day trips. San Diego 60, Stockholm 68: Stockholm leads by 8 points.
Good for families. San Diego 96, Stockholm 82: San Diego leads by 14 points.
Getting around. San Diego 38, Stockholm 84: Stockholm leads by 46 points.
Shopping & style. San Diego 44, Stockholm 70: Stockholm leads by 26 points.
Affordability. San Diego 26, Stockholm 30: Stockholm leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. San Diego 56, Stockholm 65: Stockholm leads by 9 points.
Wellness & relaxation. San Diego 45, Stockholm 56: Stockholm leads by 11 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: San Diego and Stockholm.

Your match

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

San Diego
56match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Stockholm
Best match
64match

Wins on getting around and 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.

San Diego in July

24 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
2 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Stockholm in July

23 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
65 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
16 °Csea
18 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°5°10°15°20°25°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080JFMAMJJASOND
San DiegoStockholm

Where the figures come from

Stockholm 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.

Stockholm's sunshine is measured 26 km from the centre, at Stockholm Observatoriet.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. San Diego: 1991-2020 normals, San Diego International Airport (2.8 km from centre). Stockholm: 2003-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Stockholm Bromma Airport (7.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSan DiegoStockholm
Official language-Swedish
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Swedish Krona (SEK)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation129 m22 m
Main airportSan Diego International Airport (SAN)3 km from centre87 non-stop destinationsStockholm-Arlanda Airport (ARN)36 km from centre174 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureSan DiegoStockholm
City population1,386,932984,748
People per km²1,4385,260
Museums within 10 km26266
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km03
Swim season, months above 21 °C1 monthNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow San Diego or Stockholm 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.