VacationSelector
The County Courthouse and its garden, Santa Barbara
Santa BarbaraThe County Courthouse and its garden
The lighthouse and harbour at Sharm el-Sheikh, Sharm el-Sheikh
Sharm el-SheikhThe lighthouse and harbour at Sharm el-Sheikh

Photos: Santa Barbara by Warren LeMay, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Sharm el-Sheikh by Tanya Dedyukhina, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Santa Barbara or Sharm el-Sheikh?

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 Santa Barbara for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Barbara’s own page.

Choose Sharm el-Sheikh for

  • prices
  • beaches
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Sharm el-Sheikh’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. Santa Barbara 60, Sharm el-Sheikh 87: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 27 points.
Food & drink. Santa Barbara 62, Sharm el-Sheikh 30: Santa Barbara leads by 32 points.
Culture & sights. Santa Barbara 48, Sharm el-Sheikh 12: Santa Barbara leads by 36 points.
Nightlife. Santa Barbara 34, Sharm el-Sheikh 42: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Santa Barbara 80, Sharm el-Sheikh 82: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Santa Barbara 55, Sharm el-Sheikh 30: Santa Barbara leads by 25 points.
Good for families. Santa Barbara 64, Sharm el-Sheikh 62: Santa Barbara leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Santa Barbara 46, Sharm el-Sheikh 22: Santa Barbara leads by 24 points.
Shopping & style. Santa Barbara 45, Sharm el-Sheikh 25: Santa Barbara leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Santa Barbara 15, Sharm el-Sheikh 74: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 59 points.
Live music & performing arts. Santa Barbara 50, Sharm el-Sheikh 10: Santa Barbara leads by 40 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Santa Barbara and Sharm el-Sheikh are level on 50.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Santa Barbara and Sharm el-Sheikh.

Your match

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

Santa Barbara
Best match
51match

Wins on live music and the arts and culture and sights with your weighting.

Sharm el-Sheikh
44match

Wins on prices and beaches with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Santa Barbara in July

24 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
18 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Sharm el-Sheikh in July

38 °Cdaytime high
28 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
Santa BarbaraSharm el-Sheikh

Where the figures come from

Sharm el-Sheikh has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Santa Barbara: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Barbara / La Patera (11.7 km from centre). Sharm el-Sheikh: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureSanta BarbaraSharm el-Sheikh
Official language-Arabic
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Egyptian Pound (EGP)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number911Police 122, ambulance 123, fire 180
Elevation15 m1 m
Main airportSanta Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA)12 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsSharm El Sheikh International Airport (SSH)16 km from centre112 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureSanta BarbaraSharm el-Sheikh
City population88,66573,000
People per km²816-
Museums within 10 km101
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Santa Barbara or Sharm el-Sheikh 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.