VacationSelector

Amsterdam or Milan?

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

Your match

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Amsterdam
65
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and places to eat with your weighting.

Milan
63
match

Wins on value for money and good for families with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

Scoreboard

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

AmsterdamMilan
Beaches & swimming. Amsterdam leads by 40 points.40
AmsterdamMilan
Score400
Swim season months00
Beaches 10 km334
Coast distance24 km120 km
Water distance24 km—
Places to eat. Amsterdam leads by 13 points.13
AmsterdamMilan
Score8370
Restaurants within 2 km of centre1,9571,991
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km4420
Museums & heritage. Amsterdam leads by 6 points.6
AmsterdamMilan
Score8074
Museums within 10 km9887
Museums within 2 km of centre6955
Share of museums within 2 km %7063
Unesco sites within 50 km54
Nightlife. Milan leads by 5 points.5
AmsterdamMilan
Score7075
Drinking venues within 4 km1,5432,215
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre1,078961
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7043
Nightclubs within 4 km11470
Nature & day trips. Milan leads by 5 points.5
AmsterdamMilan
Score6065
Protected land share 50 km %2130
Landscape blanket share 50 km %011
Land share of disc %82100
Park area within 2 km49 hectares102 hectares
Good for families. Milan leads by 9 points.9
AmsterdamMilan
Score6877
Tourist attractions within 2 km7476
Park area within 2 km49 hectares102 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km35
Sights concentration. Milan leads by 6 points.6
AmsterdamMilan
Score6874
Notable places within 2 km196266
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Milan leads by 10 points.10
AmsterdamMilan
Score5868
Price level global79.264.9
Daily budget€181€155
Year-round weather. Milan leads by 7 points.7
AmsterdamMilan
Score5764
Monthly daytime high6.1 °C to 23.1 °C7 °C to 28.6 °C
Monthly rainfall42 mm to 85 mm44 mm to 127 mm
Dry months00
0255075100

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
Amsterdam
6
7
11
15
18
21
23
23
20
15
10
7
Milan
7
10
15
17
23
26
29
28
24
18
11
7
Sea temperature, °C
Amsterdam
6
5
6
8
12
15
17
19
17
15
11
8
Milan
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Amsterdam
71
63
58
42
59
71
85
84
78
81
80
84
Milan
54
44
50
78
102
75
57
83
116
113
127
49
Daylight, hours per day
Amsterdam
8
10
12
14
16
17
16
15
13
11
9
8
Milan
9
10
12
14
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Amsterdam
2
3
5
6
7
7
7
6
5
4
2
2
Milan
3
4
5
6
7
7
9
8
5
4
2
2

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Amsterdam: 1991-2020 normals, De Bilt (35.3 km from centre). Milan: 1991-2020 normals, Novara / Cameri (41.2 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromAmsterdamMilan
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 5 m
€93-112
AMS · 12 km
1 h 45 m
€48-103
MXP · 40 km
BarcelonaBCN
2 h 10 m
€130-171
AMS · 12 km
1 h 30 m
€34-53
MXP · 40 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 10 m
€178-300
AMS · 12 km
1 h 20 m
€46-63
MXP · 40 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
3 h 15 m
€166-175
AMS · 12 km
2 h 40 m
€140-309
MXP · 40 km
MadridMAD
2 h 25 m
€160-183
AMS · 12 km
2 h 0 m
€63-91
MXP · 40 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
7 h 35 m
€512-556
1 stop
AMS · 12 km
8 h 15 m
€542-635
1 stop
MXP · 40 km
RomeFCO, CIA
2 h 10 m
€202-212
1 stop
AMS · 12 km
1 h 15 m
€116-135
LIN · 7 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
6 h 45 m
€318-346
1 stop
AMS · 12 km
6 h 10 m
€375-563
MXP · 40 km
ShanghaiPVG, SHA
11 h 10 m
no fares
AMS · 12 km
11 h 25 m
no fares
MXP · 40 km
Sao PauloGRU, VCP, CGH, RTE
12 h 10 m
no fares
AMS · 12 km
11 h 50 m
€1,114-1167
2 stops
MXP · 40 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

MeasureAmsterdamMilan
Official languageDutchItalian
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112 or 911112
Elevation-2 m138 m
Main airportAmsterdam Airport Schiphol (AMS)12 km from centre287 non-stop destinationsMilan Malpensa International Airport (MXP)40 km from centre203 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureAmsterdamMilan
City population921,4681,354,196
People per km²4,2087,453
Museums within 10 km10187
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km54
Distinct cuisines in the centre9879
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone–

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Amsterdam or Milan 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 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.