VacationSelector

Amsterdam or Strasbourg?

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

Your match

Amsterdam
✓ Best match
65
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and museums & heritage with your weighting.

Strasbourg
47
match

Wins on year-round weather and value for money with your weighting.

What matters to you?

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

The verdict

Choose Amsterdam if the trip is built around museums and evenings out: many times as many museums as Strasbourg, 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against 1, and far more bars and clubs, most of them near the centre.

Choose Strasbourg if you want warmer, drier days and open country around the city, with summer highs reaching 26°C and over a third of the surrounding land protected.

Scoreboard

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

AmsterdamStrasbourg
Beaches & swimming. Amsterdam leads by 40 points.40
AmsterdamStrasbourg
Score400
Swim season months00
Beaches 10 km339
Coast distance24 km398 km
Water distance24 km—
Places to eat. Amsterdam leads by 16 points.16
AmsterdamStrasbourg
Score8367
Restaurants within 2 km of centre1,957780
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km4436
Museums & heritage. Amsterdam leads by 39 points.39
AmsterdamStrasbourg
Score8041
Museums within 10 km9823
Museums within 2 km of centre6914
Share of museums within 2 km %7061
Unesco sites within 50 km51
Nightlife. Amsterdam leads by 34 points.34
AmsterdamStrasbourg
Score7036
Drinking venues within 4 km1,543305
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre1,078264
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7087
Nightclubs within 4 km11417
Nature & day trips. Amsterdam leads by 6 points.6
AmsterdamStrasbourg
Score6054
Protected land share 50 km %2137
Landscape blanket share 50 km %035
Land share of disc %82100
Park area within 2 km49 hectares71 hectares
Good for families. Amsterdam leads by 30 points.30
AmsterdamStrasbourg
Score6838
Tourist attractions within 2 km749
Park area within 2 km49 hectares71 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km31
Sights concentration. Amsterdam leads by 10 points.10
AmsterdamStrasbourg
Score6858
Notable places within 2 km196109
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Strasbourg leads by 4 points.4
AmsterdamStrasbourg
Score5862
Price level global79.273.7
Daily budget€181€160
Year-round weather. Strasbourg leads by 6 points.6
AmsterdamStrasbourg
Score5763
Monthly daytime high6.1 °C to 23.1 °C5.2 °C to 26.4 °C
Monthly rainfall42 mm to 85 mm34 mm to 77 mm
Dry months03
0255075100

Where they differ

Amsterdam is the stronger choice for museums and nights out: many times as many museums, 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against 1, and far more places to drink and dance, most near the centre. It also has about twice as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, and 33 beaches nearby against 9.

Strasbourg runs warmer, peaking at 26°C in high summer against Amsterdam's 23°C, and has more open country to work with: 37% of the land around it is protected against 21%, with more park space near the centre.

Where they are alike

The two sit closest on cost. The national estimates behind them, €181 for the Netherlands and €160 for France, cover restaurant and hotel price levels at country level, so neither trip lands at an extreme of European pricing.

They also share a yearly rhythm: July is the warmest month in both, January the coolest with highs of 5-6°C, and each gets close to 1700 hours of sunshine. Both have protected countryside and parkland within reach for days out.

Which traveller are you?

A traveller in it for museums and evening life should take Amsterdam: many times as many museums as Strasbourg, 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against 1, and far more bars and clubs, nearly all near the centre.

Families will find more to fill a week in Amsterdam, with many times as many attractions near the centre and 3 theme parks within reach against 1, though Strasbourg has more park space for younger children.

Walkers and warm-weather travellers who prefer quiet days out are better served by Strasbourg: 37% of the surrounding land is protected, summers reach 26°C, and the central sights stay within an easy walk.

What the numbers don't tell you

The daily budget figures, €181 and €160, are national estimates of restaurant and hotel price levels, not measurements of Amsterdam or Strasbourg. A capital or a heavily visited city can sit well above its own country average, by more than the gap between the two figures, so this says nothing about which of these two trips will cost you more.

The beach count needs the same care: Amsterdam has 33 beaches nearby, but neither city has a month of sea reaching 21°C, so those are places to walk rather than swim. Amsterdam's warmest months are also its wettest, and Strasbourg's driest run falls in its coldest months.

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
Strasbourg
5
7
12
17
21
24
26
26
22
16
9
6
Sea temperature, °C
Amsterdam
6
5
6
8
12
15
17
19
17
15
11
8
Strasbourg
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Amsterdam
71
63
58
42
59
71
85
84
78
81
80
84
Strasbourg
35
34
39
42
77
68
72
61
55
59
47
45
Daylight, hours per day
Amsterdam
8
10
12
14
16
17
16
15
13
11
9
8
Strasbourg
9
10
12
14
15
16
16
14
13
11
9
8
Sunshine, hours per day
Amsterdam
2
3
5
6
7
7
7
6
5
4
2
2
Strasbourg
2
3
5
6
7
7
8
7
6
3
2
1

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Amsterdam: 1991-2020 normals, De Bilt (35.3 km from centre). Strasbourg: 1991-2020 normals, Strasbourg (9.1 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Amsterdam is at its best from June to August, when highs sit at 21-23°C and the sea reaches 19°C in August. Those months are also its wettest, 71-85mm, while April is the driest at 42mm with highs of 15°C.

Strasbourg is warmer in the same window, 24-26°C from June to August, and drier by late summer at 61-72mm, though May brings 77mm. Its driest stretch is January to March, 34-39mm, but highs are only 5-12°C then.

Getting there

Flying fromAmsterdamStrasbourg
BangkokBKK, DMK
11 h 30 m
no fares
AMS · 12 km
11 h 20 m
no fares
ZRH · 137 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 5 m
€93-112
AMS · 12 km
1 h 25 m
no fares
SXB · 10 km
PalmaPMI
2 h 20 m
no fares
AMS · 12 km
2 h 0 m
no fares
FKB · 33 km
NiceNCE
1 h 50 m
€198-256
1 stop
AMS · 12 km
1 h 20 m
€81-198
SXB · 10 km
BarcelonaBCN
2 h 10 m
€130-171
AMS · 12 km
1 h 45 m
€133-212
1 stop
SXB · 10 km
Sao PauloGRU, VCP, CGH, RTE
12 h 10 m
no fares
AMS · 12 km
12 h 0 m
no fares
ZRH · 137 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
3 h 15 m
€166-175
AMS · 12 km
2 h 50 m
no fares
SXB · 10 km
MalagaAGP
2 h 55 m
€133-166
AMS · 12 km
2 h 40 m
no fares
FKB · 33 km
AtlantaATL, PDK
9 h 0 m
no fares
AMS · 12 km
9 h 30 m
no fares
STR · 109 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
6 h 45 m
€318-346
1 stop
AMS · 12 km
6 h 15 m
€232-366
1 stop
ZRH · 137 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

MeasureAmsterdamStrasbourg
Official languageDutchFrench
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCE230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112 or 911112
Elevation-2 m132 m
Main airportAmsterdam Airport Schiphol (AMS)12 km from centre287 non-stop destinationsStrasbourg Airport (SXB)10 km from centre42 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureAmsterdamStrasbourg
City population921,468293,771
People per km²4,2083,752
Museums within 10 km10121
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km51
Distinct cuisines in the centre9887
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 Strasbourg 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.