Photos: Bath by Lucas Carlini, Pexels License; Santa Monica by Domenico Convertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.
Bath or Santa Monica?
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
- culture and sights
- wellness
- getting around
What lies behind each score is written up on Bath’s own page.
Choose Santa Monica for
- beaches
- families
- food and drink
What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Monica’s own page.
Scoreboard
Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.
What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bath and Santa Monica.
Your match
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.
Too close to call, level with your weighting
Wins on culture and sights and wellness with your weighting.
Wins on beaches and families 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
Santa Monica in July
Daytime high, °C
Rainfall in the month, mm
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). Santa Monica: 1991-2020 normals, Los Angeles Airport (13.4 km from centre).
Before you go
| Measure | Bath | Santa Monica |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | English | - |
| Currency | Pound Sterling (GBP) | US Dollar (USD) |
| Sockets | G230 V, 50 Hz | AB120 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Left | Right |
| Time zone | UTC, UTC+1 in summer | UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 or 999 | 911 |
| Elevation | 132 m | 32 m |
| Main airport | Bristol Airport (BRS)25 km from centre117 non-stop destinations | Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)11 km from centre177 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 8 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Bath | Santa Monica |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 94,092 | 93,076 |
| People per km² | 3,245 | 4,270 |
| Museums within 10 km | 17 | 19 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 1 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | None | None |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bath or Santa Monica somewhere new.