Boston or Los Angeles?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Too close to call, 2 points apart
Wins on beaches & swimming and good for families with your weighting.
Wins on year-round weather and nature & day trips with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Boston leads by 31 points.31
| Boston | Los Angeles | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 60 | 29 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 68 | 0 |
| Coast distance | 1 km | — |
| Water distance | 1 km | — |
| Beaches 25 km | — | 11 |
| Warmest sea temp | — | 20.2 °C |
| Scoring variant | — | beachScoreWideRing |
| Declared | — | 2026-08-25 |
| Register | — | seed/editorial-overrides.json |
Places to eat. Boston leads by 7 points.7
| Boston | Los Angeles | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 73 | 66 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 1,452 | 1,337 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 32 | 22 |
Museums & heritage. Los Angeles leads by 6 points.6
| Boston | Los Angeles | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 43 | 49 |
| Museums within 10 km | 79 | 69 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 27 | 23 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 34 | 33 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 0 | 1 |
Nightlife. Boston leads by 4 points.4
| Boston | Los Angeles | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 58 | 54 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 886 | 660 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 513 | 432 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 58 | 65 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 43 | 64 |
Nature & day trips. Los Angeles leads by 9 points.9
| Boston | Los Angeles | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 53 | 62 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 12 | 26 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 77 | 80 |
| Park area within 2 km | 116 hectares | 20 hectares |
Good for families. Boston leads by 20 points.20
| Boston | Los Angeles | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 53 | 33 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 28 | 11 |
| Park area within 2 km | 116 hectares | 20 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 2 |
Sights concentration. Boston leads by 4 points.4
| Boston | Los Angeles | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 58 | 54 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 111 | 88 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Boston and Los Angeles are level on 43.
| Boston | Los Angeles | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 43 | 43 |
| Price level global | 100 | 100 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Los Angeles leads by 31 points.31
| Boston | Los Angeles | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 56 | 87 |
| Monthly daytime high | 2.9 °C to 28 °C | 18.6 °C to 24.7 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 79 mm to 107 mm | 0 mm to 76 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 8 |
When should you go?
The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Boston: 1991-2020 normals, Boston Logan International (3.5 km from centre). Los Angeles: 1991-2020 normals, Los Angeles Airport (18.5 km from centre).
Getting there
| Flying from | Boston | Los Angeles |
|---|---|---|
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 1 h 0 m €192-203 BOS · 4 km | 5 h 20 m no fares LAX · 19 km |
| ChicagoORD, MDW, DPA, PWK +1 | 2 h 20 m €176-196 BOS · 4 km | 4 h 0 m no fares LAX · 19 km |
| San FranciscoSFO | 5 h 45 m €341-440 1 stop BOS · 4 km | 1 h 20 m no fares LAX · 19 km |
| PhoenixPHX, AZA | 5 h 0 m €364-450 1 stop BOS · 4 km | 1 h 20 m no fares LAX · 19 km |
| OrlandoMCO, SFB, ORL | 2 h 45 m no fares BOS · 4 km | 4 h 50 m €205-248 1 stop LAX · 19 km |
| DenverDEN, APA | 4 h 0 m no fares BOS · 4 km | 2 h 20 m no fares LAX · 19 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 6 h 50 m €536-548 1 stop BOS · 4 km | 11 h 0 m no fares LAX · 19 km |
| Mexico CityMEX, NLU, TLC | 5 h 0 m no fares BOS · 4 km | 3 h 35 m €261-303 1 stop LAX · 19 km |
| BeijingPEK, PKX | 13 h 25 m no fares BOS · 4 km | 12 h 30 m no fares LAX · 19 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 13 h 15 m no fares BOS · 4 km | 16 h 25 m €964-1015 LAX · 19 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 2026-08 to 2026-10, 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
| Measure | Boston | Los Angeles |
|---|---|---|
| Currency | US Dollar (USD) | US Dollar (USD) |
| Sockets | AB120 V, 60 Hz | AB120 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer | UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer |
| Emergency number | 911 | 911 |
| Elevation | 43 m | 106 m |
| Main airport | Boston Logan International Airport (BOS)4 km from centre144 non-stop destinations | Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)19 km from centre180 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 12 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Boston | Los Angeles |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 675,647 | 3,898,747 |
| People per km² | 2,910 | 2,994 |
| Museums within 10 km | 51 | 38 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 0 | 1 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 74 | 46 |
| 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 Boston or Los Angeles somewhere new.