VacationSelector

Boston or Hanoi?

Two destinations compared in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

The Massachusetts State House, Boston
Boston

Photo: Ajay Suresh, CC BY 2.0, cropped

The Turtle Tower in Hoan Kiem Lake, Hanoi
Hanoi

Photo: xiquinhosilva, CC BY 2.0, cropped

Your match

Boston
✓ Best match
56
match

Wins on families and getting around with your weighting.

Hanoi
52
match

Wins on prices and food and drink with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

Scoreboard

Our verdict on each category, scored 0 to 100 against fixed benchmark cities.

BostonHanoi
Beaches & swimming. Boston leads by 29 points.29
Food & drink. Hanoi leads by 21 points.21
Culture & sights. Boston and Hanoi are level on 72.
Nightlife. Hanoi leads by 3 points.3
Nature & outdoors. Boston leads by 8 points.8
Day trips. Boston leads by 14 points.14
Good for families. Boston leads by 37 points.37
Getting around. Boston leads by 34 points.34
Shopping & style. Boston leads by 5 points.5
Affordability. Hanoi leads by 80 points.80
Live music & performing arts. Boston leads by 32 points.32
Wellness & relaxation. Hanoi leads by 16 points.16
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Boston and Hanoi.

When should you go?

Pick the month you can travel and see both cities side by side. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Climate figures for July
JulyBostonHanoi
Daytime high28 °C34 °C
Night-time low19 °C27 °C
Rainfall in the month82 mm311 mm
Sunshine9 hours a day6 hours a day
Sea temperature18 °CNo sea
Daylight15 hours a day13 hours a day

The whole year

Each row is shaded against that destination’s own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that figure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Boston
3
4
8
14
19
25
28
27
23
17
11
6
Hanoi
19
22
24
28
32
35
34
33
32
30
27
23
Sea temperature, °C
Boston
5
3
4
6
10
15
18
19
17
14
10
8
Hanoi
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Boston
84
79
105
91
83
99
82
80
90
101
93
107
Hanoi
23
23
52
72
204
272
311
310
179
109
73
30
Daylight, hours per day
Boston
10
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Hanoi
11
11
12
13
13
13
13
13
12
12
11
11
Sunshine, hours per day
Boston
5
5
6
7
8
8
9
9
7
5
5
4
Hanoi
2
2
2
2
6
6
6
5
6
5
4
4

Where the figures come from

Hanoi's sunshine is measured 86 km from the centre, at Phu Lien.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Boston: 1991-2020 normals, Boston Logan International (3.5 km from centre). Hanoi: 1991-2020 normals, Ha Noi (4.4 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromBostonHanoi
BeijingPEK, PKX
13 h 25 m
no fares
BOS · 4 km
3 h 25 m
€198-215
HAN · 22 km
SeoulICN, GMP
13 h 35 m
no fares
BOS · 4 km
3 h 50 m
€224-243
HAN · 22 km
Hong KongHKG
15 h 45 m
no fares
BOS · 4 km
1 h 40 m
€117-131
HAN · 22 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
6 h 50 m
€536-548
1 stop
BOS · 4 km
11 h 30 m
no fares
HAN · 22 km
TokyoHND, NRT
13 h 25 m
no fares
BOS · 4 km
5 h 0 m
€334-439
1 stop
HAN · 22 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
7 h 10 m
no fares
BOS · 4 km
11 h 25 m
no fares
HAN · 22 km
AmsterdamAMS
7 h 10 m
no fares
BOS · 4 km
11 h 5 m
no fares
HAN · 22 km
Tel Aviv YafoTLV
11 h 0 m
no fares
BOS · 4 km
8 h 55 m
no fares
HAN · 22 km
Abu DhabiAUH
13 h 15 m
no fares
BOS · 4 km
6 h 50 m
€678-696
2 stops
HAN · 22 km

The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-10 to 2026-12, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.

Before you go

MeasureBostonHanoi
Official language-Vietnamese
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Dong (VND)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzACFG220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+7
Emergency number911Police 113, ambulance 115, fire 114
Elevation43 m10 m
Main airportBoston Logan International Airport (BOS)4 km from centre144 non-stop destinationsNoi Bai International Airport (HAN)22 km from centre91 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days-

By the numbers

MeasureBostonHanoi
City population675,6478,717,600
People per km²2,9102,595
Museums within 10 km5114
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Boston or Hanoi somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate and flight figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-27. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.