Seattle or San Diego?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on places to eat and sights concentration with your weighting.
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 Diego if you are travelling with children, or want the weather to be dependable whenever you go: daytime highs stay at 19-25°C all year, with attractions, parks and theme parks close to the centre.
Choose Seattle if the trip is about eating and walking a compact centre, where restaurants are roughly twice as thick on the ground and more notable places sit within walking distance.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. San Diego leads by 3 points.3
| Seattle | San Diego | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 60 | 63 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 1 |
| Beaches 10 km | 100 | 42 |
| Coast distance | 1 km | 1 km |
| Water distance | 1 km | 1 km |
Places to eat. Seattle leads by 12 points.12
| Seattle | San Diego | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 75 | 63 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 1,460 | 823 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 35 | 27 |
Museums & heritage. San Diego leads by 8 points.8
| Seattle | San Diego | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 36 | 44 |
| Museums within 10 km | 28 | 59 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 17 | 30 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 61 | 51 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 0 | 0 |
Nightlife. Seattle leads by 7 points.7
| Seattle | San Diego | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 57 | 50 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 873 | 615 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 696 | 408 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 80 | 66 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 34 | 31 |
Nature & day trips. San Diego leads by 15 points.15
| Seattle | San Diego | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 40 | 55 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 9 | 6 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 80 | 52 |
| Park area within 2 km | 63 hectares | 308 hectares |
Good for families. San Diego leads by 29 points.29
| Seattle | San Diego | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 75 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 17 | 40 |
| Park area within 2 km | 63 hectares | 308 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 1 | 3 |
Sights concentration. Seattle leads by 12 points.12
| Seattle | San Diego | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 52 | 40 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 76 | 40 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Seattle and San Diego are level on 43.
| Seattle | San Diego | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 43 | 43 |
| Price level global | 100 | 100 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. San Diego leads by 27 points.27
| Seattle | San Diego | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 61 | 88 |
| Monthly daytime high | 7.8 °C to 24.9 °C | 18.6 °C to 25 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 15 mm to 160 mm | 0 mm to 56 mm |
| Dry months | 3 | 9 |
Where they differ
San Diego is the easier city with children: about twice as many tourist attractions near the centre, many times the park space, and 3 theme parks within reach against Seattle's 1. Daytime highs run 19-25°C across the year, against Seattle's 8-25°C.
Seattle counters with food and density: roughly twice as many restaurants near the centre, a wider range of kitchens, and about twice as many notable places within walking distance. A greater share of the land around it is protected, 9% against 6%.
Where they are alike
Both put the sea 1km from the centre, and both have plenty of shoreline to pick from, 42 beaches around San Diego and 100 around Seattle. In each, the water is at its warmest in August.
Evenings work similarly: a comparable number of nightclubs in each, with the drinking and the clubs alike clustered near the centre. Museums are a modest part of both trips, and neither has a UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach.
Which traveller are you?
Families with young children should go to San Diego: about twice as many tourist attractions near the centre, far more park space within reach, and 3 theme parks against Seattle's 1.
Travellers who plan a trip around dinner and a walkable centre will get more from Seattle, with roughly twice as many restaurants near the middle, a wider range of kitchens and more notable places within walking distance.
Anyone hoping to swim, or travelling outside summer, should pick San Diego: highs of 19-25°C all year and one month with the sea at 21°C, where Seattle's water peaks at 12°C.
What the numbers don't tell you
The value comparison between these two carries no information. It is built from a national price level that is identical for both by construction, and this dataset holds no daily budget for either city, so no cost comparison between San Diego and Seattle is possible here. Judge them on everything else.
No weather station near either city reports sunshine hours, so that side of the weather is unmeasured; the monthly picture rests on temperature, rainfall and sea temperature alone. Beach counts mislead too: Seattle has 100 beaches nearby, but the sea peaks at 12°C, while San Diego's only month with the sea at 21°C is August, its busiest.
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.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Seattle: 1991-2020 normals, Seattle-Tacoma Airport (17.3 km from centre). San Diego: 1991-2020 normals, San Diego International Airport (2.8 km from centre).
San Diego is at its best from July to October, with highs of 23-25°C, sea at 19-21°C and very little rain. Winter stays mild at about 19°C, though winter rain is heavier, at 50-56mm.
Seattle's good window is narrower: July and August, when highs reach 25°C and rainfall drops to 15-25mm. Late autumn and winter are cold and wet, with highs of 8°C and monthly rainfall up to 160mm. The shoulder months are wetter than San Diego's equivalent, so the reliable stretch is short.
Getting there
| Flying from | Seattle | San Diego |
|---|---|---|
| DenverDEN, APA | 2 h 35 m no fares SEA · 18 km | 2 h 15 m €64-224 SAN · 3 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 5 h 15 m €300-424 SEA · 18 km | 5 h 15 m €299-455 1 stop SAN · 3 km |
| Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY | 2 h 30 m €111-203 SEA · 18 km | 50 m no fares SAN · 3 km |
| PhoenixPHX, AZA | 2 h 45 m no fares SEA · 18 km | 1 h 15 m no fares SAN · 3 km |
| San FranciscoSFO | 1 h 55 m no fares SEA · 18 km | 1 h 30 m €121-158 SAN · 3 km |
| Las VegasLAS | 2 h 20 m no fares SEA · 18 km | 1 h 10 m no fares SAN · 3 km |
| ChicagoORD, MDW, DPA, PWK +1 | 3 h 55 m €257-317 1 stop SEA · 18 km | 3 h 55 m no fares SAN · 3 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 9 h 45 m no fares SEA · 18 km | 11 h 0 m no fares SAN · 3 km |
| TokyoHND, NRT | 9 h 45 m no fares SEA · 18 km | 11 h 15 m no fares SAN · 3 km |
| Puerto VallartaPVR | 4 h 35 m no fares SEA · 18 km | 2 h 45 m no fares SAN · 3 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
| Measure | Seattle | San Diego |
|---|---|---|
| Currency | US Dollar (USD) | US Dollar (USD) |
| Sockets | AB120 V, 60 Hz | AB120 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer | UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer |
| Emergency number | 911 | 911 |
| Elevation | 40 m | 129 m |
| Main airport | Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA)18 km from centre135 non-stop destinations | San Diego International Airport (SAN)3 km from centre87 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Seattle | San Diego |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 737,015 | 1,386,932 |
| People per km² | 1,996 | 1,438 |
| Museums within 10 km | 27 | 26 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 0 | 0 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 78 | 44 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | None | 1 month |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Seattle or San Diego somewhere new.