VacationSelector
Pulteney Bridge and the weir on the Avon, Bath
BathPulteney Bridge and the weir on the Avon
Hawthorne Bridge and downtown, Portland
PortlandHawthorne Bridge and downtown

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

Bath or Portland?

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
  • culture and sights
  • day trips

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

Choose Portland for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • food and drink
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Portland’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, Portland 20: Portland leads by 10 points.
Food & drink. Bath 44, Portland 68: Portland leads by 24 points.
Culture & sights. Bath 68, Portland 38: Bath leads by 30 points.
Nightlife. Bath 30, Portland 52: Portland leads by 22 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bath 58, Portland 84: Portland leads by 26 points.
Day trips. Bath 80, Portland 58: Bath leads by 22 points.
Good for families. Bath 50, Portland 55: Portland leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Bath 72, Portland 62: Bath leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Bath 54, Portland 52: Bath leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Bath 27, Portland 38: Portland leads by 11 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bath 44, Portland 55: Portland leads by 11 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bath 78, Portland 42: Bath leads by 36 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bath and Portland.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Bath
51match

Wins on wellness and culture and sights with your weighting.

Portland
52match

Wins on nature and the outdoors 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

Portland in July

27 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
13 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
BathPortland

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). Portland: 1991-2020 normals, Portland International Airport (9.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBathPortland
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation132 m152 m
Main airportBristol Airport (BRS)25 km from centre117 non-stop destinationsPortland International Airport (PDX)10 km from centre88 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureBathPortland
City population94,092652,503
People per km²3,2451,736
Museums within 10 km1717
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone-

Where else could you go?

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