VacationSelector
Skiers at the Albion base of the ski area, Alta, Utah
Alta, UtahSkiers at the Albion base of the ski area
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera

Photos: Alta, Utah by Sumanch, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License.

Alta, Utah or Kyoto?

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 Kyoto for

  • culture and sights
  • food and drink
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Kyoto’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, Kyoto 15: Kyoto leads by 12 points.
Food & drink. Alta, Utah 15, Kyoto 85: Kyoto leads by 70 points.
Culture & sights. Alta, Utah 5, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 91 points.
Nightlife. Alta, Utah 4, Kyoto 35: Kyoto leads by 31 points.
Nature & outdoors. Alta, Utah 90, Kyoto 70: Alta, Utah leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Alta, Utah 40, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 56 points.
Good for families. Alta, Utah 30, Kyoto 68: Kyoto leads by 38 points.
Getting around. Alta, Utah 35, Kyoto 72: Kyoto leads by 37 points.
Shopping & style. Alta, Utah 4, Kyoto 72: Kyoto leads by 68 points.
Affordability. Alta, Utah 15, Kyoto 50: Kyoto leads by 35 points.
Live music & performing arts. Alta, Utah 3, Kyoto 60: Kyoto leads by 57 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Alta, Utah 35, Kyoto 70: Kyoto leads by 35 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Alta, Utah and Kyoto.

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.

Kyoto
Best match
66match

Wins on culture and sights and food and drink 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
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Kyoto in July

31 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
225 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Alta, UtahKyoto

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.

Kyoto's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Osaka.

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. Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAlta, UtahKyoto
Official language-Japanese
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Yen (JPY)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-7, UTC-6 in summerUTC+9
Emergency number911Police 110, fire 119
Elevation2,610 m51 m
Main airportSalt Lake City International Airport (SLC)37 km from centre108 non-stop destinationsKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureAlta, UtahKyoto
City population2281,463,723
People per km²191,768
Museums within 10 km077
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km04
Swim season, months above 21 °C-5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Alta, Utah or Kyoto 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.