VacationSelector

United States

San Diego

Match

58

  • Beach first63
  • Culture first53
  • Food & nightlife53
  • Family trip63
  • Nature first60
  • Good weather64
  • On a budget55

The nine measures

Each scored 0 to 100 against fixed anchors, so a score means the same thing on every page. Open a row for the figures behind it.

Beaches & swimming. Scores 63 out of 100.63
Score63
Swim season months1
Beaches 10 km42
Coast distance1 km
Water distance1 km

Sea reaches 21 °C or more in 1 month, 42 beaches lie within 10 km, and the water is 1 km away.

Places to eat. Scores 63 out of 100.63
Score63
Restaurants within 2 km of centre823
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km27

823 restaurants within 2 km of the centre, spread across an effective 27 kitchens.

Museums & heritage. Scores 44 out of 100.44
Score44
Museums within 10 km59
Museums within 2 km of centre30
Share of museums within 2 km %51
Unesco sites within 50 km0

59 museums mapped within 10 km, 51% of them within 2 km of the centre, and 0 whole UNESCO inscriptions within 50 km.

Nightlife. Scores 50 out of 100.50
Score50
Drinking venues within 4 km615
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre408
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %66
Nightclubs within 4 km31

615 places to drink within 4 km, 31 nightclubs among them, and 66% of the drinking venues within 2 km of the centre.

Nature & day trips. Scores 55 out of 100.55
Score55
Protected land share 50 km %6
Landscape blanket share 50 km %0
Land share of disc %52
Park area within 2 km308 hectares

6% of the 50 km disc around the city is protected land, and there are 308 hectares of park within 2 km of the centre.

Good for families. Scores 75 out of 100.75
Score75
Tourist attractions within 2 km40
Park area within 2 km308 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km3

40 tourist attractions within 2 km beside 308 hectares of park, and 3 theme parks within 30 km.

Sights concentration. Scores 40 out of 100.40
Score40
Notable places within 2 km40
Min wikipedia languages5

40 notable places within 2 km of the centre, counting places with a Wikipedia presence in at least five languages.

Value for money. Scores 43 out of 100.43
Score43
Price level global100
Daily budget

National price level of 100 against the United States at 100, scored on a fixed scale from 20, the cheapest countries anyone travels to, to 160, the most expensive.

Year-round weather. Scores 88 out of 100.88
Score88
Monthly daytime high18.6 °C to 25 °C
Monthly rainfall0 mm to 56 mm
Dry months9

Daytime highs run 19-25 °C across the year, with 9 month(s) at 40 mm of rain or less.

0255075100

When should you go?

The figures behind each month, shaded against this city's own year: the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
San Diego
19
19
19
20
21
22
24
25
25
23
21
19
Sea temperature, °C
San Diego
15
15
16
16
17
19
20
21
21
19
18
16
Rainfall, mm
San Diego
50
56
37
17
7
1
2
0
3
13
20
42
Daylight, hours per day
San Diego
10
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
11
11
10

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. San Diego: 1991-2020 normals, San Diego International Airport (2.8 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromSan Diego
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
5 h 15 m
€299-455
1 stop
SAN · 3 km
San FranciscoSFO
1 h 30 m
€121-158
SAN · 3 km
Las VegasLAS
1 h 10 m
no fares
SAN · 3 km
DenverDEN, APA
2 h 15 m
€64-224
SAN · 3 km
BostonBOS, PSM
5 h 35 m
no fares
SAN · 3 km
ChicagoORD, MDW, DPA, PWK +1
3 h 55 m
no fares
SAN · 3 km
MunichMUC
12 h 5 m
no fares
SAN · 3 km
Puerto VallartaPVR
2 h 45 m
no fares
SAN · 3 km
TokyoHND, NRT
11 h 15 m
no fares
SAN · 3 km
DallasDFW, DAL, AFW
2 h 55 m
no fares
SAN · 3 km

The busiest departure cities for San Diego, 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. 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. 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 Diego
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number911
Elevation129 m
Main airportSan Diego International Airport (SAN)3 km from centre87 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days

By the numbers

MeasureSan Diego
City population1,386,932
People per km²1,438
Museums within 10 km26
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km0
Distinct cuisines in the centre44
Swim season, months above 21 °C1 month

Compare San Diego with

Every comparison with a written verdict behind it.

Sources

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). 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.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-09-01. Every destination we have measured.