VacationSelector

San Sebastian or Toledo?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

San Sebastian
✓ Best match
51
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and places to eat with your weighting.

Toledo
40
match

Wins on good for families and year-round weather 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 San Sebastian if the sea matters: a real swimming season in July and August, a much wider choice of places to eat near the centre, more places to drink, and more protected land for days out.

Choose Toledo if you would rather have dry, warm days over more of the year and a centre dense with attractions for children, with its museums tightly grouped.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

San SebastianToledo
Beaches & swimming. San Sebastian leads by 55 points.55
San SebastianToledo
Score550
Swim season months20
Beaches 10 km101
Coast distance0 km320 km
Water distance0 km—
Places to eat. San Sebastian leads by 31 points.31
San SebastianToledo
Score5524
Restaurants within 2 km of centre472249
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km267
Museums & heritage. Toledo leads by 7 points.7
San SebastianToledo
Score3946
Museums within 10 km1719
Museums within 2 km of centre719
Share of museums within 2 km %41100
Unesco sites within 50 km32
Nightlife. San Sebastian leads by 23 points.23
San SebastianToledo
Score4017
Drinking venues within 4 km388120
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre338115
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8796
Nightclubs within 4 km125
Nature & day trips. San Sebastian leads by 28 points.28
San SebastianToledo
Score5628
Protected land share 50 km %114
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %52100
Park area within 2 km70 hectares59 hectares
Good for families. Toledo leads by 24 points.24
San SebastianToledo
Score3054
Tourist attractions within 2 km532
Park area within 2 km70 hectares59 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km11
Sights concentration. San Sebastian leads by 8 points.8
San SebastianToledo
Score5446
Notable places within 2 km8955
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. San Sebastian and Toledo are level on 71.
San SebastianToledo
Score7171
Price level global60.860.8
Daily budget€122€122
Year-round weather. Toledo leads by 16 points.16
San SebastianToledo
Score5874
Monthly daytime high11.2 °C to 22.9 °C11.9 °C to 35.1 °C
Monthly rainfall92 mm to 203 mm6 mm to 49 mm
Dry months011
0255075100

Where they differ

San Sebastian has 10 beaches nearby against Toledo's 1, with sea warm enough for swimming in late summer. It has twice as many restaurants near the centre, a much wider range of kitchens, more places to drink, and 11% of the surrounding land protected against 4%.

Toledo runs warmer and far drier: 11 months at 40mm of rain or less, where San Sebastian has none, and high summer reaching 35°C. It also has many times more tourist attractions near the centre, which makes it the simpler city with children.

Where they are alike

The two are close on museums and heritage: a similar number of museums each, with 3 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach of San Sebastian and 2 of Toledo. Toledo's sit more tightly around its centre.

Both are also compact. Notable buildings cluster within walking distance of the centre in each, and in both the bars and clubs are close in, so neither asks much of you in transport once you arrive.

Which traveller are you?

If you plan the day around meals and a long evening, San Sebastian: about twice as many restaurants near the centre, a much wider range of kitchens, and far more bars and clubs, most of them central.

Travelling with children, Toledo is the easier base, with many times more tourist attractions near the centre and short walks between them. Both have 1 theme park within reach, though San Sebastian has more park space.

For swimming and walking, San Sebastian again: 10 beaches nearby where Toledo has 1, and 11% of the surrounding land protected, against thinner day-trip country around Toledo.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison between these two carries no information: both take the same national price level, so it is identical by construction, and the €122 a day beside it is one national estimate rather than a measurement of either city.

Elsewhere, strong figures hide their timing. Toledo's steady year-round weather includes high summer at 35°C, which is hard going in an open, stone city. San Sebastian's beaches only work in the short window when the sea passes 21°C, and that window is the crowded one; rain there never falls below 92mm in any month.

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.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
San Sebastian
11
12
14
15
18
20
22
23
21
19
14
12
Toledo
12
14
18
21
25
31
35
35
29
23
16
12
Sea temperature, °C
San Sebastian
13
12
13
14
16
19
21
22
21
18
16
14
Toledo
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
San Sebastian
151
125
119
126
122
96
92
109
117
155
203
153
Toledo
26
25
33
40
39
19
6
9
21
49
38
35
Daylight, hours per day
San Sebastian
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Toledo
10
11
12
13
14
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
San Sebastian
3
4
5
5
7
6
7
6
6
5
3
3
Toledo
5
6
7
8
10
11
13
12
9
7
5
4

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. San Sebastian: 1991-2020 normals, San Sebastian / Igueldo (6.1 km from centre). Toledo: 1991-2020 normals, Toledo (2.3 km from centre).

WorseBetter

San Sebastian is at its best from July to September, with highs of 21-23°C, sea at 21-22°C and its driest stretch of the year at 92-109mm. Rain is never absent, and November brings 203mm.

Toledo works best in May and September, at 25-29°C with 21-39mm of rain, and its shoulder season is longer at both ends. High summer climbs to 35°C, dry but hard work on foot, and winter days stay near 12°C.

Getting there

Flying fromSan SebastianToledo
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 30 m
€129-164
BIQ · 40 km
1 h 55 m
€95-123
MAD · 80 km
PalmaPMI
1 h 25 m
no fares
BIO · 75 km
1 h 20 m
€56-238
MAD · 80 km
TenerifeTFS, TFN
3 h 10 m
no fares
BIO · 75 km
2 h 50 m
€109-153
MAD · 80 km
AmsterdamAMS
2 h 0 m
€196-210
1 stop
BIO · 75 km
2 h 25 m
€175-213
MAD · 80 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 45 m
€126-289
1 stop
BIQ · 40 km
2 h 10 m
€52-105
MAD · 80 km
MunichMUC
2 h 10 m
€203-242
1 stop
BIO · 75 km
2 h 25 m
€193-236
1 stop
MAD · 80 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
2 h 0 m
no fares
BIO · 75 km
2 h 20 m
€121-231
1 stop
MAD · 80 km
BarcelonaBCN
1 h 10 m
no fares
EAS · 16 km
1 h 15 m
€116-130
1 stop
MAD · 80 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
7 h 20 m
no fares
BIO · 75 km
7 h 25 m
€496-659
1 stop
MAD · 80 km
MarrakechRAK
2 h 15 m
no fares
BIO · 75 km
1 h 55 m
no fares
MAD · 80 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

MeasureSan SebastianToledo
Official languageSpanishSpanish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation6 m523 m
Main airportSan Sebastián Airport (EAS)16 km from centre11 non-stop destinationsAdolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport (MAD)80 km from centre236 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureSan SebastianToledo
City population189,86687,216
People per km²3,118376
Museums within 10 km1413
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km32
Distinct cuisines in the centre4513
Swim season, months above 21 °C2 months–

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow San Sebastian or Toledo somewhere new.

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.