VacationSelector
A cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan, San Juan
San JuanA cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan
Mountain Village under snow, seen from the gondola, Telluride
TellurideMountain Village under snow, seen from the gondola

Photos: San Juan by Mohan Nannapaneni, Pexels License; Telluride by Murray Foubister, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

San Juan or Telluride?

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 Juan for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • culture and sights

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

Choose Telluride for

  • getting around
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Telluride’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 Juan 84, Telluride 5: San Juan leads by 79 points.
Food & drink. San Juan 66, Telluride 38: San Juan leads by 28 points.
Culture & sights. San Juan 64, Telluride 20: San Juan leads by 44 points.
Nightlife. San Juan 70, Telluride 20: San Juan leads by 50 points.
Nature & outdoors. San Juan 74, Telluride 93: Telluride leads by 19 points.
Day trips. San Juan 52, Telluride 30: San Juan leads by 22 points.
Good for families. San Juan 58, Telluride 45: San Juan leads by 13 points.
Getting around. San Juan 38, Telluride 66: Telluride leads by 28 points.
Shopping & style. San Juan 50, Telluride 25: San Juan leads by 25 points.
Affordability. San Juan 38, Telluride 7: San Juan leads by 31 points.
Live music & performing arts. San Juan 55, Telluride 35: San Juan leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. San Juan 40, Telluride 45: Telluride leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: San Juan and Telluride.

Your match

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

San Juan
Best match
57match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Telluride
36match

Wins on getting around and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

San Juan in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Telluride in July

23 °Cdaytime high
12 °Cnight-time low
58 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
San JuanTelluride

Where the figures come from

Telluride 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 Juan: 1991-2020 normals, San Juan / Int., Puerto Rico (12.8 km from centre). Telluride: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Telluride / Lime (8.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSan JuanTelluride
Official languageSpanish, English-
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-4UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation3 m2,667 m
Main airportLuis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU)12 km from centre59 non-stop destinationsMontrose Regional Airport (MTJ)64 km from centre11 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year21 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureSan JuanTelluride
City population342,2592,607
People per km²2,8471,372
Museums within 10 km180
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow San Juan or Telluride 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. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.