VacationSelector
A cobbled street of painted houses in the old town, San Miguel de Allende
San Miguel de AllendeA cobbled street of painted houses in the old town
The City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia
ValenciaThe City of Arts and Sciences

Photos: San Miguel de Allende by Russ Bowling, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Valencia by Francesco Ungaro, Pexels License.

San Miguel de Allende or Valencia?

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 Miguel de Allende for

  • wellness
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on San Miguel de Allende’s own page.

Choose Valencia for

  • beaches
  • families
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Valencia’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 Miguel de Allende 4, Valencia 78: Valencia leads by 74 points.
Food & drink. San Miguel de Allende 62, Valencia 74: Valencia leads by 12 points.
Culture & sights. San Miguel de Allende 62, Valencia 68: Valencia leads by 6 points.
Nightlife. San Miguel de Allende 38, Valencia 66: Valencia leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. San Miguel de Allende 40, Valencia 60: Valencia leads by 20 points.
Day trips. San Miguel de Allende 77, Valencia 70: San Miguel de Allende leads by 7 points.
Good for families. San Miguel de Allende 32, Valencia 75: Valencia leads by 43 points.
Getting around. San Miguel de Allende 48, Valencia 76: Valencia leads by 28 points.
Shopping & style. San Miguel de Allende 55, Valencia 57: Valencia leads by 2 points.
Affordability. San Miguel de Allende 50, Valencia 57: Valencia leads by 7 points.
Live music & performing arts. San Miguel de Allende 40, Valencia 55: Valencia leads by 15 points.
Wellness & relaxation. San Miguel de Allende 66, Valencia 42: San Miguel de Allende leads by 24 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: San Miguel de Allende and Valencia.

Your match

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

San Miguel de Allende
48match

Wins on wellness and day trips with your weighting.

Valencia
Best match
65match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

San Miguel de Allende in July

29 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
132 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
13 hdaylight a day

Valencia in July

30 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
7 mmrain in the month
10 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
San Miguel de AllendeValencia

Where the figures come from

San Miguel de Allende's temperatures are measured 54 km from the centre, at Guanajuato, Gto..

San Miguel de Allende 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 Miguel de Allende: 1991-2020 normals, Guanajuato, Gto. (53.7 km from centre). Valencia: 1991-2020 normals, Valencia (1.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSan Miguel de AllendeValencia
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation1,900 m15 m
Main airportGuanajuato International Airport (BJX)77 km from centre22 non-stop destinationsValencia Airport (VLC)9 km from centre109 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureSan Miguel de AllendeValencia
City population69,811840,792
People per km²-6,242
Museums within 10 km245
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km22
Swim season, months above 21 °C-5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow San Miguel de Allende or Valencia 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. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.