San Francisco or New York?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on nature & day trips and year-round weather with your weighting.
Wins on nightlife 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 New York if you want the eating and the going out: many more places to drink and to eat near the centre, more museums, and a proper summer with highs near 30°C.
Choose San Francisco if you want mild, dry weather and open country: highs hold at 14-23°C through the year, most months stay dry, and far more of the surrounding land is protected.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. New York leads by 4 points.4
| San Francisco | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 60 | 64 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 3 |
| Beaches 10 km | 44 | 17 |
| Coast distance | 2 km | 1 km |
| Water distance | 2 km | 1 km |
Places to eat. New York leads by 12 points.12
| San Francisco | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 83 | 95 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 2,359 | 6,032 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 39 | 38 |
Museums & heritage. New York leads by 16 points.16
| San Francisco | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 44 | 60 |
| Museums within 10 km | 57 | 119 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 29 | 31 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 51 | 26 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 0 | 2 |
Nightlife. New York leads by 21 points.21
| San Francisco | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 89 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 1,434 | 4,159 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 928 | 2,015 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 65 | 48 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 97 | 192 |
Nature & day trips. San Francisco leads by 21 points.21
| San Francisco | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 60 | 39 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 17 | 4 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 4 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 57 | 69 |
| Park area within 2 km | 45 hectares | 134 hectares |
Good for families. New York leads by 15 points.15
| San Francisco | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 57 | 72 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 48 | 37 |
| Park area within 2 km | 45 hectares | 134 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 1 | 7 |
Sights concentration. New York leads by 11 points.11
| San Francisco | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 63 | 74 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 147 | 268 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. San Francisco and New York are level on 43.
| San Francisco | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 43 | 43 |
| Price level global | 100 | 100 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. San Francisco leads by 20 points.20
| San Francisco | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 78 | 58 |
| Monthly daytime high | 14 °C to 23.2 °C | 4.5 °C to 30.1 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 0 mm to 105 mm | 74 mm to 112 mm |
| Dry months | 7 | 0 |
Where they differ
New York's nightlife is the deeper of the two, with about three times as many places to drink and twice as many nightclubs, and enough of them near the centre to walk between. Summer is properly warm, with highs of 30°C and the sea at 21°C or more for three months.
San Francisco suits getting out of the city: 17% of the land around it is protected against 4% around New York. Its weather is steadier, 14-23°C year round, with seven months at 40mm of rain or less.
Where they are alike
The two are closest on beaches and swimming. Both are coastal cities, with the sea 1km from New York's centre and 2km from San Francisco's, and both have a stock of beaches within easy reach.
They are also close on how their sights sit and on eating out. Each keeps its notable places within a walkable core, so a first visit can be done largely on foot, and both offer a similar range of kitchens.
Which traveller are you?
Someone travelling for food and late nights should take New York: many more restaurants near the centre, about three times as many places to drink, and a walkable core that keeps them within reach of each other.
Anyone who wants days out of the city is better served by San Francisco, where 17% of the surrounding land is protected and the weather stays workable at 14-23°C all year.
Families lean towards New York: about three times as much park space near the centre and seven theme parks within reach against one, though San Francisco has somewhat more tourist attractions close to its centre.
What the numbers don't tell you
No cost comparison is possible here. The value figure is a national price level, identical for both cities by construction, and the dataset carries no daily budget for either, so nothing on this page tells you which trip costs more.
The weather picture is incomplete too: no nearby station records sunshine hours, so that side of the comparison is unmeasured rather than poor. And beach counts mislead. San Francisco has 44 beaches nearby, but its sea never rises above 14°C, so those are places to walk. New York's water reaches 23°C, but only briefly.
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). New York: 1991-2020 normals, LaGuardia Airport (12.9 km from centre).
New York is best in June and September, when highs run 22-27°C and the sea peaks at 23°C in late summer. Rain is spread across every month, 74mm at least, so warm does not mean dry.
San Francisco holds up from July to October, with highs of 22-23°C and next to no rain, 0-7mm a month at the height of summer. It also stays usable in winter, 14°C in the coolest month against New York's 5°C.
Getting there
| Flying from | San Francisco | New York |
|---|---|---|
| TokyoHND, NRT | 10 h 25 m no fares SFO · 18 km | 13 h 30 m €989-1136 JFK · 21 km |
| ChicagoORD, MDW, DPA, PWK +1 | 4 h 10 m €196-293 1 stop SFO · 18 km | 2 h 5 m €236-237 LGA · 13 km |
| DallasDFW, DAL, AFW | 3 h 25 m no fares SFO · 18 km | 3 h 20 m €201-385 LGA · 13 km |
| WashingtonIAD, DCA | 5 h 15 m €252-262 1 stop SFO · 18 km | 1 h 5 m €203-258 LGA · 13 km |
| AtlantaATL, PDK | 4 h 40 m no fares SFO · 18 km | 2 h 5 m €165-236 EWR · 14 km |
| BostonBOS, PSM | 5 h 45 m no fares SFO · 18 km | 1 h 0 m €193-222 JFK · 21 km |
| MinneapolisMSP, STP | 3 h 40 m no fares SFO · 18 km | 2 h 35 m no fares EWR · 14 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 11 h 15 m no fares SFO · 18 km | 7 h 30 m €445-517 JFK · 21 km |
| Mexico CityMEX, NLU, TLC | 4 h 15 m no fares OAK · 18 km | 4 h 40 m €374-446 1 stop JFK · 21 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 16 h 0 m €1,005-1027 1 stop SFO · 18 km | 13 h 40 m no fares EWR · 14 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 2026-08 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 | New York |
|---|---|---|
| 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-5, UTC-4 in summer |
| Emergency number | 911 | 911 |
| Elevation | 16 m | 25 m |
| Main airport | San Francisco International Airport (SFO)18 km from centre142 non-stop destinations | John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)21 km from centre188 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | San Francisco | New York |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 873,965 | 8,804,190 |
| People per km² | 1,455 | 7,256 |
| Museums within 10 km | 50 | 157 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 0 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 108 | 132 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | None | 3 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow San Francisco or New York somewhere new.