VacationSelector
Skiers at the Albion base of the ski area, Alta, Utah
Alta, UtahSkiers at the Albion base of the ski area
The Forbidden City, Beijing
BeijingThe Forbidden City

Photos: Alta, Utah by Sumanch, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Beijing by BI ravencrow, Pexels License.

Alta, Utah or Beijing?

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 Alta, Utah for

  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Alta, Utah’s own page.

Choose Beijing for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Beijing’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. Alta, Utah 3, Beijing 6: Beijing leads by 3 points.
Food & drink. Alta, Utah 15, Beijing 81: Beijing leads by 66 points.
Culture & sights. Alta, Utah 5, Beijing 93: Beijing leads by 88 points.
Nightlife. Alta, Utah 4, Beijing 58: Beijing leads by 54 points.
Nature & outdoors. Alta, Utah 90, Beijing 60: Alta, Utah leads by 30 points.
Day trips. Alta, Utah 40, Beijing 85: Beijing leads by 45 points.
Good for families. Alta, Utah 30, Beijing 64: Beijing leads by 34 points.
Getting around. Alta, Utah 35, Beijing 69: Beijing leads by 34 points.
Shopping & style. Alta, Utah 4, Beijing 72: Beijing leads by 68 points.
Affordability. Alta, Utah 15, Beijing 68: Beijing leads by 53 points.
Live music & performing arts. Alta, Utah 3, Beijing 68: Beijing leads by 65 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Alta, Utah 35, Beijing 55: Beijing leads by 20 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Alta, Utah and Beijing.

Your match

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

Alta, Utah
23match

Wins on nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Beijing
Best match
65match

Wins on culture and sights and shopping with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Alta, Utah in July

22 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
27 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
15 hdaylight a day

Beijing in July

32 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
163 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
Alta, UtahBeijing

Where the figures come from

Alta, Utah has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Alta, Utah: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km. Beijing: 1991-2020 normals, Beijing (11.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAlta, UtahBeijing
Official language-Putonghua
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Yuan Renminbi (CNY)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzACI220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-7, UTC-6 in summerUTC+8
Emergency number911Police 110, ambulance 120, fire 119
Elevation2,610 m43 m
Main airportSalt Lake City International Airport (SLC)37 km from centre108 non-stop destinationsBeijing Capital International Airport (PEK)25 km from centre104 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days6 days

By the numbers

MeasureAlta, UtahBeijing
City population22821,893,095
People per km²191,334
Museums within 10 km083
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km06

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Alta, Utah or Beijing somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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. 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.