VacationSelector

Valencia or Granada?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Valencia
✓ Best match
64
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and nightlife with your weighting.

Granada
53
match

Wins on good for families and nature & day trips 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 Granada if you want a dense cluster of attractions near the centre, protected country within day-trip reach, and you can handle summer highs of 35°C.

Choose Valencia if the coast decides it: 12 beaches nearby, sea warm enough for swimming well past midsummer, and about twice the choice of restaurants, bars and clubs near the centre, plus milder winters.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

ValenciaGranada
Beaches & swimming. Valencia leads by 67 points.67
ValenciaGranada
Score670
Swim season months50
Beaches 10 km120
Coast distance3 km48 km
Water distance3 km—
Places to eat. Valencia leads by 11 points.11
ValenciaGranada
Score7867
Restaurants within 2 km of centre1,995872
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km3334
Museums & heritage. Valencia leads by 7 points.7
ValenciaGranada
Score5548
Museums within 10 km5928
Museums within 2 km of centre2626
Share of museums within 2 km %4493
Unesco sites within 50 km21
Nightlife. Valencia leads by 18 points.18
ValenciaGranada
Score7052
Drinking venues within 4 km1,513637
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre957494
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %6378
Nightclubs within 4 km10846
Nature & day trips. Granada leads by 10 points.10
ValenciaGranada
Score5363
Protected land share 50 km %1027
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %6496
Park area within 2 km119 hectares46 hectares
Good for families. Granada leads by 14 points.14
ValenciaGranada
Score4256
Tourist attractions within 2 km1260
Park area within 2 km119 hectares46 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km00
Sights concentration. Valencia leads by 8 points.8
ValenciaGranada
Score5244
Notable places within 2 km7850
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Valencia and Granada are level on 71.
ValenciaGranada
Score7171
Price level global60.860.8
Daily budget€122€122
Year-round weather. Valencia leads by 10 points.10
ValenciaGranada
Score8474
Monthly daytime high16.8 °C to 30.6 °C13.1 °C to 34.8 °C
Monthly rainfall7 mm to 70 mm0 mm to 51 mm
Dry months87
0255075100

Where they differ

Granada packs many times as many tourist attractions near the centre as Valencia, so days with children can be filled on foot; neither city has a theme park within reach. What it does not have is a coastline.

Valencia has 12 beaches nearby and 5 months of sea at 21°C or more, peaking at 26°C in August. It also has about twice as many bars and nightclubs as Granada, most of them near the centre, plus roughly three times the park space.

Where they are alike

Museums and heritage separate them least. Valencia holds about twice as many museums, but Granada's sit more tightly around the centre, and both have UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach, 2 for Valencia and 1 for Granada.

Elsewhere they converge. Notable places sit within walking distance of the centre in both, the range of kitchens on offer is similar even if Valencia has more restaurants, and each has countryside protected from development within day-trip range.

Which traveller are you?

If swimming is the point of the trip, Valencia: 12 beaches nearby and sea reaching 26°C in August, against a city with no coast at all.

If you want protected landscape on the doorstep, Granada: 27% of the surrounding land is protected against 10% around Valencia, and its museums cluster tightly enough to cover on foot.

For eating out and late nights, Valencia: about twice as many restaurants near the centre, and twice as many bars and clubs, most of them close in. Granada suits shorter, quieter evenings.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value comparison between these two carries no information. That figure is a national price level, identical for both by construction, and the €122 a day quoted beside it is one national estimate rather than a measurement of either city. Neither is the cheaper trip on this evidence.

Warm does not mean dry. Valencia's warmest early-autumn month still runs at 28°C but is also its wettest, at 70mm, so heat and beach weather do not always coincide. Granada's yearly range, 13-35°C, averages into a strong all-round weather picture that hides both a cool winter and a summer too hot for midday sightseeing.

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.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Valencia
17
17
19
21
24
28
30
31
28
25
20
17
Granada
13
15
18
20
25
31
35
34
29
24
17
14
Sea temperature, °C
Valencia
14
14
14
16
18
22
25
26
25
22
19
16
Granada
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Valencia
38
30
40
33
36
26
7
15
70
66
52
48
Granada
39
33
45
44
29
6
0
3
28
45
51
44
Daylight, hours per day
Valencia
10
11
12
13
14
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Granada
10
11
12
13
14
15
14
14
13
11
10
10
Sunshine, hours per day
Valencia
6
6
7
8
9
9
10
10
8
7
6
5
Granada
6
6
7
8
10
12
13
11
8
7
5
5

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Valencia: 1991-2020 normals, Valencia (1.6 km from centre). Granada: 1991-2020 normals, Granada / Caserío Hospicio (5 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Granada is at its best in May, with highs of 25°C and rain down to 29mm, and again in September, when highs sit at 29°C. Midsummer pushes to 35°C with almost no rain, which is more heat than most people want for a day on foot.

Valencia's window is longer. June to August brings 28-31°C with sea at 22-26°C and little rain at the height of summer. Autumn stays warm but turns wet, 70mm in September, and winters are milder than Granada's.

Getting there

Flying fromValenciaGranada
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
2 h 15 m
€80-167
VLC · 9 km
2 h 40 m
€67-129
AGP · 97 km
AmsterdamAMS
2 h 25 m
€155-178
VLC · 9 km
2 h 55 m
€146-177
AGP · 97 km
PalmaPMI
1 h 0 m
€32-53
VLC · 9 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
GRX · 16 km
BrusselsBRU, CRL
2 h 15 m
€110-139
VLC · 9 km
2 h 45 m
€110-142
1 stop
AGP · 97 km
MilanMXP, BGY, LIN
1 h 50 m
€51-87
VLC · 9 km
2 h 25 m
€61-88
AGP · 97 km
RomeFCO, CIA
2 h 0 m
€70-117
VLC · 9 km
2 h 30 m
€59-73
AGP · 97 km
DublinDUB
2 h 35 m
no fares
VLC · 9 km
2 h 50 m
€122-139
1 stop
AGP · 97 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 55 m
€103-131
VLC · 9 km
2 h 20 m
no fares
GRX · 16 km
MarrakechRAK
2 h 0 m
€72-115
VLC · 9 km
1 h 25 m
€58-149
AGP · 97 km
MontrealYUL, YHU, YMX
7 h 30 m
no fares
VLC · 9 km
7 h 25 m
no fares
AGP · 97 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

MeasureValenciaGranada
Official languageSpanishSpanish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation15 m693 m
Main airportValencia Airport (VLC)9 km from centre107 non-stop destinationsF.G.L. Airport Granada-Jaén Airport (GRX)16 km from centre12 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureValenciaGranada
City population840,792233,975
People per km²6,2422,659
Museums within 10 km4619
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Distinct cuisines in the centre9262
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 months–

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Valencia or Granada somewhere new.

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. 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). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-09-01. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.