Boston or Montreal?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on beaches & swimming and nature & day trips with your weighting.
Wins on value for money and nightlife with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
The verdict
Choose Boston if the coast and open ground matter: 68 beaches within reach, more protected land around the city, twice the museums, and a warmer year overall, with highs of 3-28°C.
Choose Montreal if the trip is built around evenings and eating: a wider range of kitchens, roughly twice the nightclubs, more park space close to the centre and a theme park within reach. Winter bites harder there.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Boston leads by 60 points.60
| Boston | Montreal | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 60 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 68 | 7 |
| Coast distance | 1 km | 276 km |
| Water distance | 1 km | — |
Places to eat. Montreal leads by 1 points.1
| Boston | Montreal | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 73 | 74 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 1,452 | 1,016 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 32 | 49 |
Museums & heritage. Boston leads by 6 points.6
| Boston | Montreal | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 43 | 37 |
| Museums within 10 km | 79 | 39 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 27 | 19 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 34 | 49 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 0 | 0 |
Nightlife. Montreal leads by 4 points.4
| Boston | Montreal | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 58 | 62 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 886 | 1,012 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 513 | 493 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 58 | 49 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 43 | 74 |
Nature & day trips. Boston leads by 17 points.17
| Boston | Montreal | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 53 | 36 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 12 | 2 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 77 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 116 hectares | 189 hectares |
Good for families. Boston leads by 3 points.3
| Boston | Montreal | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 53 | 50 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 28 | 11 |
| Park area within 2 km | 116 hectares | 189 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 1 |
Sights concentration. Boston leads by 2 points.2
| Boston | Montreal | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 58 | 56 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 111 | 98 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Montreal leads by 11 points.11
| Boston | Montreal | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 43 | 54 |
| Price level global | 100 | 84 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Boston leads by 6 points.6
| Boston | Montreal | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 56 | 50 |
| Monthly daytime high | 2.9 °C to 28 °C | -3.5 °C to 26.5 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 79 mm to 107 mm | 69 mm to 121 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 0 |
Where they differ
Boston is the one with a coast: 68 beaches nearby against Montreal's 7, and 12% of the surrounding land is protected against 2%, so open country is easier to reach. It also has about twice as many museums, roughly three times as many tourist attractions near the centre, and warmer daytime highs across the year, 3-28°C against -3-27°C.
Montreal offers a much wider range of kitchens, about twice as many nightclubs, twice as much park space near the centre, and 1 theme park within reach where Boston has none.
Where they are alike
Eating out is where they land closest. Both hold a heavy concentration of restaurants near the centre, Boston somewhat more of them, Montreal the broader spread of kitchens, so neither trip will be short of choice.
They are also close on what sits within walking distance of the centre, on going out, where both have a similar number of drinking places with roughly half of them central, and on family appeal. Neither has a UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach.
Which traveller are you?
If you want water and open ground, take Boston: 68 beaches nearby, far more protected land within day-trip range, and a sea that peaks at 19°C, warm enough for a short swimming season.
If evenings decide the trip, take Montreal: roughly twice as many nightclubs as Boston, a comparable number of bars, and the wider range of kitchens, with about half the going-out spread sitting near the centre.
Families split. Boston has around three times as many tourist attractions near the centre; Montreal counters with more park space close in and 1 theme park within reach, so it is sights against room to run.
What the numbers don't tell you
No cost comparison is possible here. The dataset carries no daily budget figure for either city, so nothing in it tells you which trip works out dearer, and the value ranking rests on a different measure that should not be read as a price.
The beach count also flatters Boston. 68 beaches sound decisive, but the sea peaks at 19°C and never reaches 21°C, so swimming is a short and bracing season rather than a summer-long option. Rain evens things out: neither city has a month at 40mm or less, so a warm month is not a dry one in either.
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). Montreal: 1991-2020 normals, Montreal McTavish (3.2 km from centre).
Boston is the better bet from June to September, with highs of 25-28°C and the sea at its warmest, 19°C in August; rainfall runs at 80-99mm through that stretch, no wetter than the rest of its year.
Montreal is at its best in July, at 27°C, and in the drier stretch of early summer; late summer turns wetter, at 109mm. Midwinter is the clearest split, with Montreal below freezing at -3°C while Boston holds 3°C.
Getting there
| Flying from | Boston | Montreal |
|---|---|---|
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 1 h 0 m €192-203 BOS · 4 km | 1 h 20 m €231-372 1 stop YUL · 16 km |
| ChicagoORD, MDW, DPA, PWK +1 | 2 h 20 m €176-196 BOS · 4 km | 2 h 5 m no fares YUL · 16 km |
| TorontoYYZ, YHM, YTZ | 1 h 30 m €211-283 1 stop BOS · 4 km | 1 h 15 m €133-276 YUL · 16 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 6 h 50 m €536-548 1 stop BOS · 4 km | 6 h 50 m €447-599 1 stop YUL · 16 km |
| Punta CanaPUJ | 3 h 50 m no fares BOS · 4 km | 4 h 15 m no fares YUL · 16 km |
| WashingtonIAD, DCA | 1 h 25 m €175-234 1 stop BOS · 4 km | 1 h 35 m no fares YUL · 16 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 7 h 10 m no fares BOS · 4 km | 7 h 10 m €308-372 YUL · 16 km |
| CancunCUN | 3 h 55 m no fares BOS · 4 km | 4 h 10 m no fares YUL · 16 km |
| PhiladelphiaPHL, TTN | 1 h 10 m no fares BOS · 4 km | 1 h 25 m no fares YUL · 16 km |
| SeoulICN, GMP | 13 h 35 m no fares BOS · 4 km | 13 h 5 m no fares YUL · 16 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 | Montreal |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | – | French, English |
| Currency | US Dollar (USD) | Canadian Dollar (CAD) |
| Sockets | AB120 V, 60 Hz | AB120 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer | UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer |
| Emergency number | 911 | 911 |
| Elevation | 43 m | 31 m |
| Main airport | Boston Logan International Airport (BOS)4 km from centre144 non-stop destinations | Montreal / Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL)16 km from centre164 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 12 days | 10 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Boston | Montreal |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 675,647 | 1,895,211 |
| People per km² | 2,910 | 3,806 |
| Museums within 10 km | 51 | 37 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 0 | 0 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 74 | 97 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | None | – |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Boston or Montreal somewhere new.