VacationSelector
Pulteney Bridge and the weir on the Avon, Bath
BathPulteney Bridge and the weir on the Avon
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera

Photos: Bath by Lucas Carlini, Pexels License; Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License.

Bath 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 Bath for

  • wellness

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

Choose Kyoto for

  • food and drink
  • culture and sights
  • 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. Bath 10, Kyoto 15: Kyoto leads by 5 points.
Food & drink. Bath 44, Kyoto 85: Kyoto leads by 41 points.
Culture & sights. Bath 68, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 28 points.
Nightlife. Bath 30, Kyoto 35: Kyoto leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bath 58, Kyoto 70: Kyoto leads by 12 points.
Day trips. Bath 80, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 16 points.
Good for families. Bath 50, Kyoto 68: Kyoto leads by 18 points.
Getting around. Bath and Kyoto are level on 72.
Shopping & style. Bath 54, Kyoto 72: Kyoto leads by 18 points.
Affordability. Bath 27, Kyoto 50: Kyoto leads by 23 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bath 44, Kyoto 60: Kyoto leads by 16 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bath 78, Kyoto 70: Bath leads by 8 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bath and Kyoto.

Your match

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

Bath
51match

Wins on wellness with your weighting.

Kyoto
Best match
66match

Wins on food and drink and culture and sights 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

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

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
BathKyoto

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.

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

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Bath: 1991-2020 normals, Lyneham (29.2 km from centre). Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBathKyoto
Official languageEnglishJapanese
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Yen (JPY)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+9
Emergency number112 or 999Police 110, fire 119
Elevation132 m51 m
Main airportBristol Airport (BRS)25 km from centre117 non-stop destinationsKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureBathKyoto
City population94,0921,463,723
People per km²3,2451,768
Museums within 10 km1777
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km24
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bath 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. 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. 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.