San Francisco or Los Angeles?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on beaches & swimming and good for families with your weighting.
Wins on year-round weather and museums & heritage with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
The verdict
Choose Los Angeles if you want warmth that holds up outside summer, with daytime highs of 19-25°C across the year and a long dry stretch from spring to autumn, plus more museums and more protected land within day-trip reach.
Choose San Francisco if the trip is about eating out, going out and walking between sights, with beaches and family attractions close to the centre.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. San Francisco leads by 31 points.31
| San Francisco | Los Angeles | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 60 | 29 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 44 | 0 |
| Coast distance | 2 km | — |
| Water distance | 2 km | — |
| Beaches 25 km | — | 11 |
| Warmest sea temp | — | 20.2 °C |
| Scoring variant | — | beachScoreWideRing |
| Declared | — | 2026-08-25 |
| Register | — | seed/editorial-overrides.json |
Places to eat. San Francisco leads by 17 points.17
| San Francisco | Los Angeles | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 83 | 66 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 2,359 | 1,337 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 39 | 22 |
Museums & heritage. Los Angeles leads by 5 points.5
| San Francisco | Los Angeles | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 44 | 49 |
| Museums within 10 km | 57 | 69 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 29 | 23 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 51 | 33 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 0 | 1 |
Nightlife. San Francisco leads by 14 points.14
| San Francisco | Los Angeles | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 54 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 1,434 | 660 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 928 | 432 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 65 | 65 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 97 | 64 |
Nature & day trips. Los Angeles leads by 2 points.2
| San Francisco | Los Angeles | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 60 | 62 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 17 | 26 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 4 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 57 | 80 |
| Park area within 2 km | 45 hectares | 20 hectares |
Good for families. San Francisco leads by 24 points.24
| San Francisco | Los Angeles | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 57 | 33 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 48 | 11 |
| Park area within 2 km | 45 hectares | 20 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 1 | 2 |
Sights concentration. San Francisco leads by 9 points.9
| San Francisco | Los Angeles | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 63 | 54 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 147 | 88 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. San Francisco and Los Angeles are level on 43.
| San Francisco | Los Angeles | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 43 | 43 |
| Price level global | 100 | 100 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Los Angeles leads by 9 points.9
| San Francisco | Los Angeles | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 78 | 87 |
| Monthly daytime high | 14 °C to 23.2 °C | 18.6 °C to 24.7 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 0 mm to 105 mm | 0 mm to 76 mm |
| Dry months | 7 | 8 |
Where they differ
Los Angeles is the warmer city year-round, 19-25°C against San Francisco's 14-23°C, and it keeps more of the year dry. It also has more museums, and 1 UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach where San Francisco has none.
San Francisco has about twice as many restaurants near the centre and a wider range of kitchens, about twice as many bars and clubs, and many times as many tourist attractions near the centre. It has 44 beaches nearby where Los Angeles has none, though Los Angeles has 2 theme parks against 1.
Where they are alike
Day trips from either city rest on similar ground: both sit within reach of substantial protected countryside, 26% around Los Angeles and 17% around San Francisco, and both have green space near the centre.
Neither is chosen mainly for its museums: Los Angeles holds more of them, San Francisco keeps its own tightly grouped around the centre, and in both the notable sights and the drinking venues sit near the middle rather than spreading out.
Which traveller are you?
If the trip is built around eating and going out, take San Francisco: about twice as many restaurants near the centre, a wider spread of kitchens, and roughly twice as many bars and clubs, most of them walkable from the middle.
Families with young children will find more to do in San Francisco, with many times as many tourist attractions near the centre, twice the park space and beaches close by. Los Angeles counters with 2 theme parks against 1.
Travellers who want warmth outside summer and drive out for landscape should pick Los Angeles: highs of 19-25°C year-round, more protected countryside within reach, more museums and a UNESCO-listed place on a day trip.
What the numbers don't tell you
San Francisco's beach count is 44, but the sea sits at 12-14°C all year and neither city has a month of sea at 21°C or more, so this is coastline for walking rather than swimming. The sunshine figure is missing for both, as no nearby station records it, so that side of the weather comparison is unmeasured rather than poor.
The value figure is a national price level, identical for both by construction. No daily budget exists for either city, so no cost comparison between them is possible: read the matching value as missing information, not as evidence they cost the same.
When should you go?
The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. San Francisco: 1981-2010 normals, Alameda Naval Air Station (9.1 km from centre). Los Angeles: 1991-2020 normals, Los Angeles Airport (18.5 km from centre).
Los Angeles peaks from July to October, with highs of 24-25°C, the sea at its warmest and rainfall down to 0-13mm. Winter stays mild near 19°C and remains the better of the two.
San Francisco is at its best in August and September, warmest at 23°C and driest then. From November to March it is cooler at 14-18°C and much wetter, reaching 105mm in a month, which is when Los Angeles pulls ahead.
Getting there
| Flying from | San Francisco | Los Angeles |
|---|---|---|
| TokyoHND, NRT | 10 h 25 m no fares SFO · 18 km | 11 h 0 m €785-892 1 stop LAX · 19 km |
| PhoenixPHX, AZA | 1 h 55 m no fares SFO · 18 km | 1 h 20 m no fares LAX · 19 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 5 h 35 m €286-328 1 stop SFO · 18 km | 5 h 20 m no fares LAX · 19 km |
| Las VegasLAS | 1 h 25 m no fares OAK · 18 km | 1 h 5 m no fares LAX · 19 km |
| VancouverYVR, YDT | 2 h 10 m no fares SFO · 18 km | 2 h 45 m €166-318 1 stop LAX · 19 km |
| DallasDFW, DAL, AFW | 3 h 25 m no fares SFO · 18 km | 3 h 0 m €188-208 LAX · 19 km |
| DenverDEN, APA | 2 h 30 m no fares SFO · 18 km | 2 h 20 m no fares LAX · 19 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 11 h 15 m no fares SFO · 18 km | 11 h 25 m €600-640 1 stop LAX · 19 km |
| Mexico CityMEX, NLU, TLC | 4 h 15 m no fares OAK · 18 km | 3 h 35 m €261-303 1 stop LAX · 19 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 16 h 0 m €1,005-1027 1 stop SFO · 18 km | 16 h 25 m €964-1015 LAX · 19 km |
The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-09 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.
Before you go
| Measure | San Francisco | Los Angeles |
|---|---|---|
| Currency | US Dollar (USD) | US Dollar (USD) |
| Sockets | AB120 V, 60 Hz | AB120 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer | UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer |
| Emergency number | 911 | 911 |
| Elevation | 16 m | 106 m |
| Main airport | San Francisco International Airport (SFO)18 km from centre142 non-stop destinations | Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)19 km from centre180 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | San Francisco | Los Angeles |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 873,965 | 3,898,747 |
| People per km² | 1,455 | 2,994 |
| Museums within 10 km | 50 | 38 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 0 | 1 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 108 | 46 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | None | None |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow San Francisco or Los Angeles somewhere new.