VacationSelector
The Guggenheim Museum on the river, Bilbao
BilbaoThe Guggenheim Museum on the river
The top of the Mountaintop Express lift on Vail Mountain, Vail
VailThe top of the Mountaintop Express lift on Vail Mountain

Photos: Bilbao by José Ligero Loarte, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Vail by DReifGalaxyM31, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Bilbao or Vail?

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

  • culture and sights
  • food and drink
  • beaches

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

Choose Vail for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Vail’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, Vail 5: Bilbao leads by 40 points.
Food & drink. Bilbao 81, Vail 35: Bilbao leads by 46 points.
Culture & sights. Bilbao 62, Vail 10: Bilbao leads by 52 points.
Nightlife. Bilbao 54, Vail 30: Bilbao leads by 24 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bilbao 75, Vail 92: Vail leads by 17 points.
Day trips. Bilbao 78, Vail 45: Bilbao leads by 33 points.
Good for families. Bilbao and Vail are level on 55.
Getting around. Bilbao 79, Vail 62: Bilbao leads by 17 points.
Shopping & style. Bilbao 47, Vail 35: Bilbao leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Bilbao 44, Vail 5: Bilbao leads by 39 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bilbao 53, Vail 42: Bilbao leads by 11 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bilbao 33, Vail 48: Vail leads by 15 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bilbao and Vail.

Your match

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

Bilbao
Best match
59match

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

Vail
39match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and wellness 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

Vail in July

29 °Cdaytime high
9 °Cnight-time low
35 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
BilbaoVail

Where the figures come from

Vail's temperatures are measured 47 km from the centre, at Kremmling.

Vail's station stands 186 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Vail 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). Vail: 2006-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Kremmling (46.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBilbaoVail
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 m2,445 m
Main airportBilbao Airport (BIO)5 km from centre73 non-stop destinationsEagle County Regional Airport (EGE)48 km from centre16 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureBilbaoVail
City population351,1244,835
People per km²8,440400
Museums within 10 km171
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 Vail 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. 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.