Sorrento or Zadar?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on beaches & swimming and museums & heritage with your weighting.
Wins on nature & day trips and good for families 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 Sorrento if the trip is built around the water: more beaches within reach, a longer warm-sea season and slightly milder winters, with 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach.
Choose Zadar if you want more to do on foot and with children: about three times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, more park space, and more protected countryside for day trips.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Sorrento leads by 4 points.4
| Sorrento | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 77 | 73 |
| Swim season months | 5 | 4 |
| Beaches 10 km | 78 | 49 |
| Coast distance | 0 km | 0 km |
| Water distance | 0 km | 0 km |
Places to eat. Zadar leads by 6 points.6
| Sorrento | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 19 | 25 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 249 | 143 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 5 | 11 |
Museums & heritage. Sorrento leads by 4 points.4
| Sorrento | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 37 | 33 |
| Museums within 10 km | 7 | 8 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 4 | 8 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 57 | 100 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 5 | 2 |
Nightlife. Zadar leads by 3 points.3
| Sorrento | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 22 | 25 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 179 | 194 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 131 | 139 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 73 | 72 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 2 | 4 |
Nature & day trips. Zadar leads by 32 points.32
| Sorrento | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 23 | 55 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 7 | 12 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 42 | 47 |
| Park area within 2 km | 4 hectares | 30 hectares |
Good for families. Zadar leads by 26 points.26
| Sorrento | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 5 | 31 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 2 | 9 |
| Park area within 2 km | 4 hectares | 30 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 1 | 1 |
Sights concentration. Zadar leads by 21 points.21
| Sorrento | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 10 | 31 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 7 | 23 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Zadar leads by 12 points.12
| Sorrento | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 68 | 80 |
| Price level global | 64.9 | 48.5 |
| Daily budget | €155 | €138 |
Year-round weather. Sorrento leads by 4 points.4
| Sorrento | Zadar | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 73 | 69 |
| Monthly daytime high | 13.1 °C to 31.4 °C | 10.4 °C to 31 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 17 mm to 159 mm | 25 mm to 117 mm |
| Dry months | 3 | 2 |
Where they differ
Sorrento has 78 beaches nearby against Zadar's 49, and a longer stretch of sea at 21°C or more. It runs slightly warmer year-round and places 5 UNESCO-listed sites within day-trip reach against Zadar's 2.
Zadar has around three times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, many times as much park space and far more attractions near the centre for families. Protected land around it covers 12% against 7% near Sorrento, widening the choice of day trips. Its kitchens span a wider range.
Where they are alike
Nightlife is the closest match. Both have a similar number of places to drink, most of them near the centre, so an evening out is walkable in either city. Zadar has about twice as many nightclubs, but neither is club-led.
They are close too on beaches, weather and heritage: the sea is 0km from both centres, summer highs reach 31°C in each, and the two hold a comparable number of museums.
Which traveller are you?
A swimmer or beach-first traveller should take Sorrento: 78 beaches nearby, sea peaking at 26°C and a longer warm-water season, all reached from a centre that sits on the water.
Families are better served in Zadar, with many times as much park space and far more attractions close to the centre, and 12% protected land around the city. Each has one theme park within reach.
A traveller who wants to walk to everything also leans Zadar, with about three times as many notable places near the centre. Sorrento answers with roughly twice as many restaurants close in.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €155 and €138, are national estimates for Italy and Croatia, the price level for restaurants and hotels, not measurements of Sorrento or Zadar. A small, heavily visited coastal town can sit well above its national average, so the gap between the two says little about what either trip costs.
No weather station near Zadar records sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low, and its monthly ranking rests on temperature, rainfall and sea temperature alone. A high beach count is not the same as space: Sorrento's beaches serve a town of 15,400 people in the months when the weather is at its best.
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. Sorrento: 1991-2020 normals, Grazzanise (53.6 km from centre). Zadar: 1999-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Zadar / Zemunik (9.9 km from centre).
Sorrento's window is July and August: highs of 31°C, sea at 25-26°C and the driest stretch of its year at 17-18mm of rain. Zadar is wetter in both those months.
Zadar is the better pick either side of that. May and September suit walking and day trips, the latter still at 26°C, and spring rain is lighter than Sorrento's. Avoid November in both: 117mm of rain in Zadar and 159mm in Sorrento.
Getting there
| Flying from | Sorrento | Zadar |
|---|---|---|
| MilanMXP, BGY, LIN | 1 h 30 m €35-109 NAP · 30 km | 1 h 20 m no fares ZAD · 10 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 2 h 10 m €108-170 NAP · 30 km | 2 h 5 m €169-225 SPU · 107 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 35 m €90-167 1 stop NAP · 30 km | 2 h 20 m no fares ZAD · 10 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 2 h 25 m €163-210 1 stop NAP · 30 km | 2 h 10 m €186-201 1 stop SPU · 107 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 55 m no fares NAP · 30 km | 1 h 5 m €294 SPU · 107 km |
| MunichMUC | 1 h 40 m €157-224 1 stop NAP · 30 km | 1 h 25 m no fares SPU · 107 km |
| ViennaVIE | 1 h 40 m €125-207 1 stop NAP · 30 km | 1 h 10 m €45-192 ZAD · 10 km |
| DublinDUB | 3 h 5 m €109-195 NAP · 30 km | 3 h 0 m no fares SPU · 107 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 2 h 0 m €132-252 1 stop NAP · 30 km | 1 h 40 m €161-226 1 stop ZAD · 10 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 9 h 0 m no fares NAP · 30 km | 9 h 0 m no fares SPU · 107 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 2026-09 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 | Sorrento | Zadar |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Italian | Croatian |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CFL230 V, 50 Hz | CF230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 |
| Elevation | 50 m | 5 m |
| Main airport | Naples International Airport (NAP)30 km from centre131 non-stop destinations | Zadar Airport (ZAD)10 km from centre67 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 14 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Sorrento | Zadar |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 15,407 | 70,779 |
| People per km² | 1,541 | – |
| Museums within 10 km | 5 | 1 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 5 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 11 | 17 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 5 months | 4 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Sorrento or Zadar somewhere new.