VacationSelector
The Flame Towers from the seafront, Baku
BakuThe Flame Towers from the seafront
Galway Cathedral from the River Corrib, Galway
GalwayGalway Cathedral from the River Corrib

Photos: Baku by Zulfugar Karimov, Pexels License; Galway by Dieglop, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Baku or Galway?

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 Baku for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

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

Choose Galway for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Galway’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. Baku 40, Galway 28: Baku leads by 12 points.
Food & drink. Baku 60, Galway 45: Baku leads by 15 points.
Culture & sights. Baku 62, Galway 33: Baku leads by 29 points.
Nightlife. Baku 42, Galway 50: Galway leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Baku 30, Galway 78: Galway leads by 48 points.
Day trips. Baku 45, Galway 56: Galway leads by 11 points.
Good for families. Baku 45, Galway 42: Baku leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Baku and Galway are level on 58.
Shopping & style. Baku 48, Galway 38: Baku leads by 10 points.
Affordability. Baku 64, Galway 28: Baku leads by 36 points.
Live music & performing arts. Baku 52, Galway 57: Galway leads by 5 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Baku 30, Galway 28: Baku leads by 2 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Baku and Galway.

Your match

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

Baku
Best match
48match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Galway
45match

Wins on nature and the outdoors 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.

Baku in July

30 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
5 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Galway in July

20 °Cdaytime high
13 °Cnight-time low
91 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
16 °Csea
16 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
BakuGalway

Where the figures come from

Galway's temperatures are measured 64 km from the centre, at Shannon Airport.

Galway 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.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Baku: 1991-2020 normals, Mashtaga (23.2 km from centre). Galway: 1991-2020 normals, Shannon Airport (64.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBakuGalway
Official languageAzerbaijani, Azerbaijani Sign LanguageEnglish, Irish
CurrencyAzerbaijan Manat (AZN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF220 V, 50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+4UTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency number102 or 112112
Elevation-28 m25 m
Main airportHeydar Aliyev International Airport (GYD)22 km from centre79 non-stop destinationsShannon Airport (SNN)64 km from centre39 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-11 days

By the numbers

MeasureBakuGalway
City population2,300,50083,456
People per km²1,0751,563
Museums within 10 km504
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Baku or Galway 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.