VacationSelector
The Guggenheim Museum on the river, Bilbao
BilbaoThe Guggenheim Museum on the river
Inverness Castle above the River Ness, Inverness
InvernessInverness Castle above the River Ness

Photos: Bilbao by José Ligero Loarte, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Inverness by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Bilbao or Inverness?

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
  • getting around

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

Choose Inverness for

  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Inverness’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, Inverness 20: Bilbao leads by 25 points.
Food & drink. Bilbao 81, Inverness 36: Bilbao leads by 45 points.
Culture & sights. Bilbao 62, Inverness 27: Bilbao leads by 35 points.
Nightlife. Bilbao 54, Inverness 28: Bilbao leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bilbao 75, Inverness 84: Inverness leads by 9 points.
Day trips. Bilbao 78, Inverness 56: Bilbao leads by 22 points.
Good for families. Bilbao and Inverness are level on 55.
Getting around. Bilbao 79, Inverness 48: Bilbao leads by 31 points.
Shopping & style. Bilbao 47, Inverness 30: Bilbao leads by 17 points.
Affordability. Bilbao 44, Inverness 38: Bilbao leads by 6 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bilbao 53, Inverness 33: Bilbao leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bilbao 33, Inverness 30: Bilbao leads by 3 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bilbao and Inverness.

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.

Inverness
40match

Wins on nature and the outdoors 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

Inverness in July

19 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
69 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
14 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
BilbaoInverness

Where the figures come from

Inverness 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.

Inverness's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Kinloss.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Bilbao: 1991-2020 normals, Bilbao / Sondica (4.1 km from centre). Inverness: 2005-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Inverness / Dalcross (11.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBilbaoInverness
Official languageSpanishEnglish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency number112112 or 999
Elevation19 m7 m
Main airportBilbao Airport (BIO)5 km from centre73 non-stop destinationsInverness Airport (INV)12 km from centre15 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureBilbaoInverness
City population351,12447,380
People per km²8,4402,289
Museums within 10 km173
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °C1 monthNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bilbao or Inverness 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.