VacationSelector
Bell Rock outside Sedona, Sedona
SedonaBell Rock outside Sedona
The Opera House from the water, Sydney
SydneyThe Opera House from the water

Photos: Sedona by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Sydney by Bernard Spragg, CC0.

Sedona or Sydney?

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 Sedona for

  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips

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

Choose Sydney for

  • beaches
  • live music and the arts
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Sydney’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. Sedona 16, Sydney 95: Sydney leads by 79 points.
Food & drink. Sedona 33, Sydney 77: Sydney leads by 44 points.
Culture & sights. Sedona 20, Sydney 60: Sydney leads by 40 points.
Nightlife. Sedona 8, Sydney 60: Sydney leads by 52 points.
Nature & outdoors. Sedona 93, Sydney 85: Sedona leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Sedona 55, Sydney 50: Sedona leads by 5 points.
Good for families. Sedona 42, Sydney 75: Sydney leads by 33 points.
Getting around. Sedona 22, Sydney 75: Sydney leads by 53 points.
Shopping & style. Sedona 34, Sydney 68: Sydney leads by 34 points.
Affordability. Sedona 18, Sydney 22: Sydney leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. Sedona 13, Sydney 73: Sydney leads by 60 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Sedona 82, Sydney 55: Sedona leads by 27 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Sedona and Sydney.

Your match

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

Sedona
36match

Wins on wellness and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Sydney
Best match
66match

Wins on beaches and live music and the arts with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Sedona in July

34 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
51 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Sydney in July

18 °Cdaytime high
9 °Cnight-time low
70 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
19 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
SedonaSydney

Where the figures come from

Sedona's station stands 153 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

Sedona has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Sedona: 2009-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Sedona / West Sedona (1.3 km from centre). Sydney: 1991-2020 normals, Sydney Airport (3.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSedonaSydney
Official language-English
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Australian Dollar (AUD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-7UTC+10, UTC+11 in summer
Emergency number911000
Elevation1,319 m6 m
Main airportPhoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX)160 km from centre148 non-stop destinationsSydney Kingsford Smith International Airport (SYD)9 km from centre99 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureSedonaSydney
City population9,6845,450,496
People per km²195449
Museums within 10 km038
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
Swim season, months above 21 °C-6 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Sedona or Sydney 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. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.