VacationSelector
The Winchester Mystery House, San Jose
San JoseThe Winchester Mystery House
People's Square (Narodni trg), Zadar
ZadarPeople's Square (Narodni trg)

Photos: San Jose by Roxanna Salceda, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Zadar by Böhringer Friedrich, CC BY-SA 2.5, cropped.

San Jose 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 Jose for

  • shopping
  • food and drink
  • families

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

Choose Zadar for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • getting around

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 Jose 30, Zadar 72: Zadar leads by 42 points.
Food & drink. San Jose 56, Zadar 45: San Jose leads by 11 points.
Culture & sights. San Jose 36, Zadar 55: Zadar leads by 19 points.
Nightlife. San Jose 33, Zadar 38: Zadar leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. San Jose 72, Zadar 82: Zadar leads by 10 points.
Day trips. San Jose 78, Zadar 70: San Jose leads by 8 points.
Good for families. San Jose 65, Zadar 55: San Jose leads by 10 points.
Getting around. San Jose 30, Zadar 58: Zadar leads by 28 points.
Shopping & style. San Jose 48, Zadar 27: San Jose leads by 21 points.
Affordability. San Jose 20, Zadar 52: Zadar leads by 32 points.
Live music & performing arts. San Jose 38, Zadar 28: San Jose leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. San Jose 30, Zadar 35: Zadar leads by 5 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

San Jose
45match

Wins on shopping and food and drink with your weighting.

Zadar
Best match
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 Jose in July

27 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
14 °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 JoseZadar

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 Jose: 1991-2020 normals, San Jose / Santa Clara Trailer Village (8.2 km from centre). Zadar: 1999-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Zadar / Zemunik (9.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSan JoseZadar
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
Elevation25 m5 m
Main airportMineta San Jose International Airport (SJC)8 km from centre38 non-stop destinationsZadar Airport (ZAD)10 km from centre66 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureSan JoseZadar
City population1,013,24070,779
People per km²2,167-
Museums within 10 km191
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 Jose 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.