VacationSelector
Pulteney Bridge and the weir on the Avon, Bath
BathPulteney Bridge and the weir on the Avon
The pastel houses of Rainbow Row, Charleston
CharlestonThe pastel houses of Rainbow Row

Photos: Bath by Lucas Carlini, Pexels License; Charleston by NealVickers, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Bath or Charleston?

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 Bath for

  • wellness
  • getting around
  • day trips

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

Choose Charleston for

  • beaches
  • food and drink
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Charleston’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. Bath 10, Charleston 72: Charleston leads by 62 points.
Food & drink. Bath 44, Charleston 72: Charleston leads by 28 points.
Culture & sights. Bath 68, Charleston 64: Bath leads by 4 points.
Nightlife. Bath 30, Charleston 44: Charleston leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bath 58, Charleston 55: Bath leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Bath 80, Charleston 62: Bath leads by 18 points.
Good for families. Bath 50, Charleston 60: Charleston leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Bath 72, Charleston 46: Bath leads by 26 points.
Shopping & style. Bath 54, Charleston 55: Charleston leads by 1 points.
Affordability. Bath and Charleston are level on 27.
Live music & performing arts. Bath 44, Charleston 42: Bath leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bath 78, Charleston 40: Bath leads by 38 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Bath
51match

Wins on wellness and getting around with your weighting.

Charleston
53match

Wins on beaches and food and drink with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Bath in July

21 °Cdaytime high
12 °Cnight-time low
62 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
18 °Csea
16 hdaylight a day

Charleston in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
167 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
BathCharleston

Where the figures come from

Bath's temperatures are measured 29 km from the centre, at Lyneham.

Bath 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. Bath: 1991-2020 normals, Lyneham (29.2 km from centre). Charleston: 1991-2020 normals, Charleston Airport (16.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBathCharleston
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation132 m6 m
Main airportBristol Airport (BRS)25 km from centre117 non-stop destinationsCharleston International Airport (CHS)16 km from centre56 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureBathCharleston
City population94,092150,227
People per km²3,245532
Museums within 10 km1719
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone6 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bath or Charleston 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). 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. 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.