VacationSelector
The Sagrada Família, Barcelona
BarcelonaThe Sagrada Família
The Aare at Unterseen, Interlaken, Interlaken
InterlakenThe Aare at Unterseen, Interlaken

Photos: Barcelona by Canaan, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Interlaken by Roy Egloff, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Barcelona or Interlaken?

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 Barcelona for

  • culture and sights
  • nightlife
  • food and drink

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

Choose Interlaken for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Interlaken’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. Barcelona 75, Interlaken 30: Barcelona leads by 45 points.
Food & drink. Barcelona 82, Interlaken 25: Barcelona leads by 57 points.
Culture & sights. Barcelona 86, Interlaken 8: Barcelona leads by 78 points.
Nightlife. Barcelona 82, Interlaken 15: Barcelona leads by 67 points.
Nature & outdoors. Barcelona 72, Interlaken 97: Interlaken leads by 25 points.
Day trips. Barcelona 80, Interlaken 78: Barcelona leads by 2 points.
Good for families. Barcelona 76, Interlaken 72: Barcelona leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Barcelona and Interlaken are level on 80.
Shopping & style. Barcelona 75, Interlaken 22: Barcelona leads by 53 points.
Affordability. Barcelona 44, Interlaken 8: Barcelona leads by 36 points.
Live music & performing arts. Barcelona 70, Interlaken 15: Barcelona leads by 55 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Barcelona 38, Interlaken 40: Interlaken leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Barcelona and Interlaken.

Your match

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

Barcelona
Best match
72match

Wins on culture and sights and nightlife with your weighting.

Interlaken
41match

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

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Barcelona in July

28 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
27 mmrain in the month
10 hsunshine a day
24 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Interlaken in July

24 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
126 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
BarcelonaInterlaken

Where the figures come from

Interlaken 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. Barcelona: 1991-2020 normals, Barcelona / Aeropuerto (14.4 km from centre). Interlaken: 2005-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Meiringen / Unterbach (19.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBarcelonaInterlaken
Official languageSpanishFrench, German, Italian, Romansh
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Swiss Franc (CHF)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCJ230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation9 m571 m
Main airportJosep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport (BCN)13 km from centre235 non-stop destinationsZürich Airport (ZRH)100 km from centre226 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureBarcelonaInterlaken
City population1,731,6496,123
People per km²17,0941,424
Museums within 10 km953
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km32
Swim season, months above 21 °C3 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Barcelona or Interlaken 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). 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.