VacationSelector
The Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco
San FranciscoThe Golden Gate Bridge
People's Square (Narodni trg), Zadar
ZadarPeople's Square (Narodni trg)

Photos: San Francisco by Elijah Cobb, Pexels License; Zadar by Böhringer Friedrich, CC BY-SA 2.5, cropped.

San Francisco or Zadar?

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 Francisco for

  • live music and the arts
  • food and drink
  • shopping

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

Choose Zadar for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Zadar’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 Francisco 25, Zadar 72: Zadar leads by 47 points.
Food & drink. San Francisco 82, Zadar 45: San Francisco leads by 37 points.
Culture & sights. San Francisco 68, Zadar 55: San Francisco leads by 13 points.
Nightlife. San Francisco 58, Zadar 38: San Francisco leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. San Francisco 80, Zadar 82: Zadar leads by 2 points.
Day trips. San Francisco 72, Zadar 70: San Francisco leads by 2 points.
Good for families. San Francisco 66, Zadar 55: San Francisco leads by 11 points.
Getting around. San Francisco 70, Zadar 58: San Francisco leads by 12 points.
Shopping & style. San Francisco 58, Zadar 27: San Francisco leads by 31 points.
Affordability. San Francisco 14, Zadar 52: Zadar leads by 38 points.
Live music & performing arts. San Francisco 76, Zadar 28: San Francisco leads by 48 points.
Wellness & relaxation. San Francisco 42, Zadar 35: San Francisco leads by 7 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: San Francisco and Zadar.

Your match

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

San Francisco
Best match
59match

Wins on live music and the arts and food and drink with your weighting.

Zadar
51match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

San Francisco in July

22 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
13 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Zadar in July

31 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
29 mmrain in the month
24 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
San FranciscoZadar

Where the figures come from

Zadar 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.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. San Francisco: 1981-2010 normals, Alameda Naval Air Station (9.1 km from centre). Zadar: 1999-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Zadar / Zemunik (9.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSan FranciscoZadar
Official language-Croatian
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation16 m5 m
Main airportSan Francisco International Airport (SFO)18 km from centre142 non-stop destinationsZadar Airport (ZAD)10 km from centre66 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureSan FranciscoZadar
City population873,96570,779
People per km²1,455-
Museums within 10 km511
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow San Francisco or Zadar 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. 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.