VacationSelector
Galena Street with the runs of Aspen Mountain, Aspen
AspenGalena Street with the runs of Aspen Mountain
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera

Photos: Aspen by Moroder, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License.

Aspen 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 Aspen for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • nightlife

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

Choose Kyoto for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • prices

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. Aspen 6, Kyoto 15: Kyoto leads by 9 points.
Food & drink. Aspen 45, Kyoto 85: Kyoto leads by 40 points.
Culture & sights. Aspen 22, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 74 points.
Nightlife. Aspen 40, Kyoto 35: Aspen leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. Aspen 95, Kyoto 70: Aspen leads by 25 points.
Day trips. Aspen 30, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 66 points.
Good for families. Aspen 55, Kyoto 68: Kyoto leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Aspen and Kyoto are level on 72.
Shopping & style. Aspen 50, Kyoto 72: Kyoto leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Aspen 5, Kyoto 50: Kyoto leads by 45 points.
Live music & performing arts. Aspen 50, Kyoto 60: Kyoto leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Aspen 50, Kyoto 70: Kyoto leads by 20 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Aspen and Kyoto.

Your match

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

Aspen
43match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and nightlife with your weighting.

Kyoto
Best match
66match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Aspen in July

27 °Cdaytime high
10 °Cnight-time low
33 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
AspenKyoto

Where the figures come from

Aspen 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.

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

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Aspen: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Aspen / Woody Creek (5.2 km from centre). Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAspenKyoto
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
Elevation2,405 m51 m
Main airportAspen-Pitkin County Airport (Sardy Field) (ASE)5 km from centre11 non-stop destinationsKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureAspenKyoto
City population7,0041,463,723
People per km²7001,768
Museums within 10 km277
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 Aspen or Kyoto 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. 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. 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.