VacationSelector
The Explanada de España, Alicante
AlicanteThe Explanada de España
Inverness Castle above the River Ness, Inverness
InvernessInverness Castle above the River Ness

Photos: Alicante by Emilio Sánchez Hernández, Pexels License; Inverness by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Alicante or Inverness?

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 Alicante for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • food and drink

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

Choose Inverness for

  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Inverness’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. Alicante 82, Inverness 20: Alicante leads by 62 points.
Food & drink. Alicante 67, Inverness 36: Alicante leads by 31 points.
Culture & sights. Alicante 46, Inverness 27: Alicante leads by 19 points.
Nightlife. Alicante 60, Inverness 28: Alicante leads by 32 points.
Nature & outdoors. Alicante 63, Inverness 84: Inverness leads by 21 points.
Day trips. Alicante 72, Inverness 56: Alicante leads by 16 points.
Good for families. Alicante 68, Inverness 55: Alicante leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Alicante 66, Inverness 48: Alicante leads by 18 points.
Shopping & style. Alicante 44, Inverness 30: Alicante leads by 14 points.
Affordability. Alicante 60, Inverness 38: Alicante leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. Alicante 37, Inverness 33: Alicante leads by 4 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Alicante 40, Inverness 30: Alicante leads by 10 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Alicante
Best match
59match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Inverness
40match

Wins on nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Alicante in July

30 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
3 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Inverness in July

19 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
69 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
14 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
AlicanteInverness

Where the figures come from

Inverness 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.

Inverness's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Kinloss.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Alicante: 1991-2020 normals, Alicante (2.8 km from centre). Inverness: 2005-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Inverness / Dalcross (11.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAlicanteInverness
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
Elevation3 m7 m
Main airportAlicante-Elche Miguel Hernández Airport (ALC)10 km from centre126 non-stop destinationsInverness Airport (INV)12 km from centre15 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureAlicanteInverness
City population366,22147,380
People per km²1,8192,289
Museums within 10 km83
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Alicante or Inverness 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. 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.