VacationSelector
The Guggenheim Museum on the river, Bilbao
BilbaoThe Guggenheim Museum on the river
Skiers at the foot of the slopes in the village, Copper Mountain
Copper MountainSkiers at the foot of the slopes in the village

Photos: Bilbao by José Ligero Loarte, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Copper Mountain by SparkFunElectronics, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Bilbao or Copper Mountain?

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 Bilbao for

  • food and drink
  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Copper Mountain for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Copper Mountain’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. Bilbao 45, Copper Mountain 3: Bilbao leads by 42 points.
Food & drink. Bilbao 81, Copper Mountain 20: Bilbao leads by 61 points.
Culture & sights. Bilbao 62, Copper Mountain 4: Bilbao leads by 58 points.
Nightlife. Bilbao 54, Copper Mountain 12: Bilbao leads by 42 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bilbao 75, Copper Mountain 90: Copper Mountain leads by 15 points.
Day trips. Bilbao 78, Copper Mountain 55: Bilbao leads by 23 points.
Good for families. Bilbao 55, Copper Mountain 62: Copper Mountain leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Bilbao 79, Copper Mountain 48: Bilbao leads by 31 points.
Shopping & style. Bilbao 47, Copper Mountain 8: Bilbao leads by 39 points.
Affordability. Bilbao 44, Copper Mountain 18: Bilbao leads by 26 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bilbao 53, Copper Mountain 8: Bilbao leads by 45 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bilbao 33, Copper Mountain 28: Bilbao leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bilbao and Copper Mountain.

Your match

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

Bilbao
Best match
59match

Wins on food and drink and culture and sights with your weighting.

Copper Mountain
30match

Wins on nature and the outdoors 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.

Bilbao in July

25 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
54 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
21 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Copper Mountain in July

21 °Cdaytime high
5 °Cnight-time low
41 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
BilbaoCopper Mountain

Where the figures come from

Copper Mountain's temperatures are measured 35 km from the centre, at Leadville / Stringtown.

Copper Mountain 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. Bilbao: 1991-2020 normals, Bilbao / Sondica (4.1 km from centre). Copper Mountain: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Leadville / Stringtown (35.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBilbaoCopper Mountain
Official languageSpanish-
CurrencyEuro (EUR)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation19 m2,955 m
Main airportBilbao Airport (BIO)5 km from centre73 non-stop destinationsDenver International Airport (DEN)132 km from centre231 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureBilbaoCopper Mountain
City population351,124650
People per km²8,4408
Museums within 10 km170
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °C1 month-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bilbao or Copper Mountain 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.