VacationSelector

San Sebastian or Washington DC?

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

Your match

Too close to call, 1 point apart

San Sebastian
51
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and value for money with your weighting.

Washington DC
52
match

Wins on places to eat and sights concentration with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

Scoreboard

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

San SebastianWashington DC
Beaches & swimming. San Sebastian leads by 37 points.37
San SebastianWashington DC
Score5518
Swim season months23
Beaches 10 km101
Coast distance0 km34 km
Water distance0 km34 km
Places to eat. Washington DC leads by 22 points.22
San SebastianWashington DC
Score5577
Restaurants within 2 km of centre4721,666
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km2636
Museums & heritage. Washington DC leads by 16 points.16
San SebastianWashington DC
Score3955
Museums within 10 km1783
Museums within 2 km of centre755
Share of museums within 2 km %4166
Unesco sites within 50 km30
Nightlife. Washington DC leads by 21 points.21
San SebastianWashington DC
Score4061
Drinking venues within 4 km3881,029
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre338593
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8758
Nightclubs within 4 km1254
Nature & day trips. San Sebastian leads by 14 points.14
San SebastianWashington DC
Score5642
Protected land share 50 km %1110
Landscape blanket share 50 km %01
Land share of disc %5294
Park area within 2 km70 hectares96 hectares
Good for families. Washington DC leads by 8 points.8
San SebastianWashington DC
Score3038
Tourist attractions within 2 km57
Park area within 2 km70 hectares96 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km11
Sights concentration. Washington DC leads by 22 points.22
San SebastianWashington DC
Score5476
Notable places within 2 km89305
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. San Sebastian leads by 28 points.28
San SebastianWashington DC
Score7143
Price level global60.8100
Daily budget€122
Year-round weather. Washington DC leads by 4 points.4
San SebastianWashington DC
Score5862
Monthly daytime high11.2 °C to 22.9 °C7 °C to 31.7 °C
Monthly rainfall92 mm to 203 mm65 mm to 108 mm
Dry months00
0255075100

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
Washington DC
7
9
13
20
24
29
32
31
27
21
14
9
Sea temperature, °C
San Sebastian
13
12
13
14
16
19
21
22
21
18
16
14
Washington DC
3
3
4
9
14
20
25
26
23
18
12
7
Rainfall, mm
San Sebastian
151
125
119
126
122
96
92
109
117
155
203
153
Washington DC
72
65
89
82
101
107
108
83
100
93
74
86
Daylight, hours per day
San Sebastian
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Washington DC
10
11
12
13
14
15
15
14
13
11
10
10
Sunshine, hours per day
San Sebastian
3
4
5
5
7
6
7
6
6
5
3
3
Washington DC
No sunshine record

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). Washington DC: 1991-2020 normals, Washington National Airport (5 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromSan SebastianWashington DC
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 30 m
€129-164
BIQ · 40 km
8 h 0 m
no fares
IAD · 37 km
AmsterdamAMS
2 h 0 m
€196-210
1 stop
BIO · 75 km
8 h 0 m
no fares
IAD · 37 km
MunichMUC
2 h 10 m
€203-242
1 stop
BIO · 75 km
8 h 45 m
no fares
IAD · 37 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
2 h 0 m
no fares
BIO · 75 km
8 h 20 m
no fares
IAD · 37 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
7 h 20 m
no fares
BIO · 75 km
1 h 5 m
€233-271
DCA · 5 km
MadridMAD
1 h 5 m
€76-169
EAS · 16 km
7 h 50 m
no fares
IAD · 37 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 45 m
€126-289
1 stop
BIQ · 40 km
7 h 35 m
€507-561
1 stop
IAD · 37 km
BarcelonaBCN
1 h 10 m
no fares
EAS · 16 km
8 h 20 m
no fares
IAD · 37 km
LisbonLIS
1 h 30 m
€129-223
1 stop
BIO · 75 km
7 h 25 m
no fares
IAD · 37 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
3 h 45 m
€192-214
BIO · 75 km
10 h 30 m
no fares
IAD · 37 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 SebastianWashington DC
Official languageSpanish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation6 m72 m
Main airportSan Sebastián Airport (EAS)16 km from centre11 non-stop destinationsRonald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA)5 km from centre103 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureSan SebastianWashington DC
City population189,866689,545
People per km²3,1183,896
Museums within 10 km1499
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km30
Distinct cuisines in the centre4582
Swim season, months above 21 °C2 months3 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow San Sebastian or Washington DC 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.

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.