VacationSelector

San Diego or Varanasi?

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

The Botanical Building, Balboa Park, San Diego
San Diego

Photo: Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped

Rowing boats below the ghats in the morning light, Varanasi
Varanasi

Photo: Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped

Your match

San Diego
✓ Best match
56
match

Wins on families and beaches with your weighting.

Varanasi
40
match

Wins on prices and culture and sights 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.

San DiegoVaranasi
Beaches & swimming. San Diego leads by 68 points.68
Food & drink. San Diego leads by 7 points.7
Culture & sights. Varanasi leads by 30 points.30
Nightlife. San Diego leads by 38 points.38
Nature & outdoors. San Diego leads by 59 points.59
Day trips. San Diego leads by 18 points.18
Good for families. San Diego leads by 91 points.91
Getting around. San Diego leads by 10 points.10
Shopping & style. Varanasi leads by 11 points.11
Affordability. Varanasi leads by 66 points.66
Live music & performing arts. Varanasi leads by 2 points.2
Wellness & relaxation. San Diego leads by 15 points.15
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: San Diego and Varanasi.

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
JulySan DiegoVaranasi
Daytime high24 °C35 °C
Night-time low19 °C27 °C
Rainfall in the month2 mm249 mm
Sea temperature20 °CNo sea
Daylight14 hours a day14 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
San Diego
19
19
19
20
21
22
24
25
25
23
21
19
Varanasi
24
29
35
41
43
41
35
33
32
32
28
24
Sea temperature, °C
San Diego
15
15
16
16
17
19
20
21
21
19
18
16
Varanasi
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
San Diego
50
56
37
17
7
1
2
0
3
13
20
42
Varanasi
12
14
10
11
23
110
249
200
146
34
2
5
Daylight, hours per day
San Diego
10
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
11
11
10
Varanasi
11
11
12
13
13
14
14
13
12
12
11
11

Where the figures come from

Varanasi 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. San Diego: 1991-2020 normals, San Diego International Airport (2.8 km from centre). Varanasi: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

WorseBetter

Before you go

MeasureSan DiegoVaranasi
Official language-Hindi, English
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Indian Rupee (INR)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCM230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC+5:30
Emergency number911108 or 112
Elevation129 m76 m
Main airportSan Diego International Airport (SAN)3 km from centre87 non-stop destinationsLal Bahadur Shastri International Airport (VNS)21 km from centre16 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days-

By the numbers

MeasureSan DiegoVaranasi
City population1,386,9321,198,491
People per km²1,43814,598
Museums within 10 km262
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C1 month-

Where else could you go?

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