VacationSelector

San Sebastian or Toulouse?

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 nature & day trips with your weighting.

Toulouse
48
match

Wins on good for families and places to eat 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 is the point: 10 beaches nearby, water warm enough to swim in at 21°C or more in late summer, and protected countryside and parkland within easy reach of the centre.

Choose Toulouse if you want a longer warm season, a wider choice of restaurants and museums near the centre, and more to keep children occupied, with only 1 place to swim.

Scoreboard

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

San SebastianToulouse
Beaches & swimming. San Sebastian leads by 55 points.55
San SebastianToulouse
Score550
Swim season months20
Beaches 10 km101
Coast distance0 km145 km
Water distance0 km—
Places to eat. Toulouse leads by 15 points.15
San SebastianToulouse
Score5570
Restaurants within 2 km of centre472962
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km2637
Museums & heritage. Toulouse leads by 12 points.12
San SebastianToulouse
Score3951
Museums within 10 km1727
Museums within 2 km of centre718
Share of museums within 2 km %4167
Unesco sites within 50 km32
Nightlife. Toulouse leads by 3 points.3
San SebastianToulouse
Score4043
Drinking venues within 4 km388389
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre338343
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8788
Nightclubs within 4 km1236
Nature & day trips. San Sebastian leads by 35 points.35
San SebastianToulouse
Score5621
Protected land share 50 km %111
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %52100
Park area within 2 km70 hectares43 hectares
Good for families. Toulouse leads by 36 points.36
San SebastianToulouse
Score3066
Tourist attractions within 2 km580
Park area within 2 km70 hectares43 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km12
Sights concentration. San Sebastian leads by 3 points.3
San SebastianToulouse
Score5451
Notable places within 2 km8972
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. San Sebastian leads by 9 points.9
San SebastianToulouse
Score7162
Price level global60.873.7
Daily budget€122€160
Year-round weather. Toulouse leads by 13 points.13
San SebastianToulouse
Score5871
Monthly daytime high11.2 °C to 22.9 °C9.7 °C to 28.5 °C
Monthly rainfall92 mm to 203 mm37 mm to 74 mm
Dry months01
0255075100

Where they differ

San Sebastian has 10 beaches nearby against Toulouse's 1, and the sea there is warm enough for swimming at 21°C or more in late summer. It also sits in far greener surroundings, with 11% of the land around it protected against 1%, and more park space near the centre.

Toulouse is the easier city with children, with far more tourist attractions close to the centre and 2 theme parks within reach against San Sebastian's 1, though the parkland is thinner.

Where they are alike

Nights out are on a similar scale. The two have about as many places to drink as each other, and in both they sit near the centre, so an evening is walked rather than travelled; Toulouse adds the larger club side of it.

Both centres are compact, with the notable places within walking distance, San Sebastian somewhat more so. Museums follow suit: Toulouse has more of them, closely grouped, while San Sebastian counts 3 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against 2.

Which traveller are you?

A swimmer or beach-goer should take San Sebastian: 10 beaches within reach and sea at 22°C in August, against a single swimming spot in Toulouse and no month of genuinely warm water.

Families are better served in Toulouse, with far more attractions close to the centre and 2 theme parks within reach. San Sebastian answers with parkland and beaches rather than organised things to do.

Someone travelling for food and museums should pick Toulouse: about twice as many restaurants near the centre, a wider spread of kitchens, and more museums, most of them grouped tightly enough to cover on foot.

What the numbers don't tell you

The daily budget figures, €122 and €160, are national price levels for restaurants and hotels, not measurements of either city. A well-visited city can sit far from its own country's average, by more than the gap between the two figures, so they tell you little about what a week in either place will actually cost.

San Sebastian's beaches are its strongest suit, but the sea is only at its warmest in late summer, which is also when the city is fullest, and rain does not take the summer off: even the driest month brings 92mm.

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
Toulouse
10
11
15
18
21
26
28
29
25
20
14
10
Sea temperature, °C
San Sebastian
13
12
13
14
16
19
21
22
21
18
16
14
Toulouse
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
San Sebastian
151
125
119
126
122
96
92
109
117
155
203
153
Toulouse
53
37
45
65
74
64
40
45
46
54
55
49
Daylight, hours per day
San Sebastian
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Toulouse
9
11
12
13
15
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
Toulouse
3
4
6
6
7
8
8
8
7
5
3
3

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). Toulouse: 1991-2020 normals, Toulouse / Blagnac (7 km from centre).

WorseBetter

San Sebastian is at its best from July to September, with daytime highs of 22-23°C and the sea at 21-22°C. Rain never stops entirely: even the driest summer month brings 92mm, and late autumn climbs to 203mm, so a beach week is a gamble outside high summer.

Toulouse holds a longer warm run, May to September, with highs of 21-29°C and drier summer months at 40-46mm. Both cities fall to around 10-11°C in the coldest month.

Getting there

Flying fromSan SebastianToulouse
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 30 m
€129-164
BIQ · 40 km
1 h 25 m
€77-94
TLS · 7 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 45 m
€126-289
1 stop
BIQ · 40 km
1 h 40 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
AmsterdamAMS
2 h 0 m
€196-210
1 stop
BIO · 75 km
1 h 50 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
MunichMUC
2 h 10 m
€203-242
1 stop
BIO · 75 km
1 h 50 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
2 h 0 m
no fares
BIO · 75 km
1 h 45 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
PalmaPMI
1 h 25 m
no fares
BIO · 75 km
1 h 15 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
MadridMAD
1 h 5 m
€76-169
EAS · 16 km
1 h 20 m
€120-143
TLS · 7 km
LyonLYS
1 h 20 m
no fares
BIQ · 40 km
1 h 5 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
AlicanteALC
1 h 20 m
€81-137
BIO · 75 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
TLS · 7 km
MarrakechRAK
2 h 15 m
no fares
BIO · 75 km
2 h 30 m
no fares
TLS · 7 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 SebastianToulouse
Official languageSpanishFrench
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCE230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation6 m115 m
Main airportSan Sebastián Airport (EAS)16 km from centre11 non-stop destinationsToulouse-Blagnac Airport (TLS)7 km from centre80 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureSan SebastianToulouse
City population189,866514,819
People per km²3,1184,352
Museums within 10 km1424
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km32
Distinct cuisines in the centre45101
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 Toulouse 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.