VacationSelector
The City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia
ValenciaThe City of Arts and Sciences
York Minster from the city walls, York
YorkYork Minster from the city walls

Photos: Valencia by Francesco Ungaro, Pexels License; York by PAUL FARMER, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Valencia or York?

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 Valencia for

  • beaches
  • food and drink
  • nightlife

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

Choose York for

  • day trips
  • culture and sights
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on York’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. Valencia 78, York 14: Valencia leads by 64 points.
Food & drink. Valencia 74, York 42: Valencia leads by 32 points.
Culture & sights. Valencia 68, York 70: York leads by 2 points.
Nightlife. Valencia 66, York 36: Valencia leads by 30 points.
Nature & outdoors. Valencia 60, York 62: York leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Valencia 70, York 80: York leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Valencia 75, York 60: Valencia leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Valencia 76, York 72: Valencia leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Valencia 57, York 46: Valencia leads by 11 points.
Affordability. Valencia 57, York 38: Valencia leads by 19 points.
Live music & performing arts. Valencia 55, York 38: Valencia leads by 17 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Valencia 42, York 34: Valencia leads by 8 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Valencia
Best match
65match

Wins on beaches and food and drink with your weighting.

York
49match

Wins on day trips and culture and sights with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Valencia in July

30 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
7 mmrain in the month
10 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

York in July

21 °Cdaytime high
12 °Cnight-time low
62 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
No seasea
17 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080JFMAMJJASOND
ValenciaYork

Where the figures come from

York 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.

York's sunshine is measured 48 km from the centre, at Leeming.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Valencia: 1991-2020 normals, Valencia (1.6 km from centre). York: 1991-2020 normals, Linton-On-Ouse (14.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureValenciaYork
Official languageSpanishEnglish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency number112112 or 999
Elevation15 m25 m
Main airportValencia Airport (VLC)9 km from centre109 non-stop destinationsLeeds Bradford Airport (LBA)39 km from centre69 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days8 days

By the numbers

MeasureValenciaYork
City population840,792208,400
People per km²6,242766
Museums within 10 km4524
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km22
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 York 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. 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.