VacationSelector

Boston or New York?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Boston
55
match

Wins on nature & day trips with your weighting.

New York
✓ Best match
66
match

Wins on nightlife and places to eat 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 New York if you are going for the eating and the night out, and if you are travelling with children: it has the theme parks, the attractions and the denser walkable centre.

Choose Boston if you want the city as a base for the coast and the countryside, with 68 beaches nearby and far more protected land within reach, and if you prefer a drier high summer.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

BostonNew York
Beaches & swimming. New York leads by 4 points.4
BostonNew York
Score6064
Swim season months03
Beaches 10 km6817
Coast distance1 km1 km
Water distance1 km1 km
Places to eat. New York leads by 22 points.22
BostonNew York
Score7395
Restaurants within 2 km of centre1,4526,032
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km3238
Museums & heritage. New York leads by 17 points.17
BostonNew York
Score4360
Museums within 10 km79119
Museums within 2 km of centre2731
Share of museums within 2 km %3426
Unesco sites within 50 km02
Nightlife. New York leads by 31 points.31
BostonNew York
Score5889
Drinking venues within 4 km8864,159
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre5132,015
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %5848
Nightclubs within 4 km43192
Nature & day trips. Boston leads by 14 points.14
BostonNew York
Score5339
Protected land share 50 km %124
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %7769
Park area within 2 km116 hectares134 hectares
Good for families. New York leads by 19 points.19
BostonNew York
Score5372
Tourist attractions within 2 km2837
Park area within 2 km116 hectares134 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km07
Sights concentration. New York leads by 16 points.16
BostonNew York
Score5874
Notable places within 2 km111268
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Boston and New York are level on 43.
BostonNew York
Score4343
Price level global100100
Daily budget——
Year-round weather. New York leads by 2 points.2
BostonNew York
Score5658
Monthly daytime high2.9 °C to 28 °C4.5 °C to 30.1 °C
Monthly rainfall79 mm to 107 mm74 mm to 112 mm
Dry months00
0255075100

Where they differ

Boston is the better base for days out of the city: 12% of the land around it is protected against 4% around New York, and 68 beaches lie nearby against New York's 17.

New York has many times as many bars and nightclubs, and many times as many restaurants near the centre, across a wider range of kitchens. It also has 7 theme parks within reach where Boston has none, more attractions and park space near the centre, and about twice as many notable places within walking distance.

Where they are alike

Both run through the same seasonal swing: daytime highs of 3-28°C in Boston and 5-30°C in New York, and no month is dry, neither city dropping to 40mm or less.

Both are coastal: the sea is 1km from each centre and warmest in August, so swimming is a short summer business in either. Both also keep protected land and park space within reach of the centre.

Which traveller are you?

Someone travelling to eat and drink should choose New York: many times as many restaurants near the centre and a wider spread of kitchens, plus many times as many bars and nightclubs, about half of them central.

Families are better served in New York too: 7 theme parks within reach where Boston has none, more attractions and park space near the centre, and about twice as many notable places within walking distance.

Anyone planning coast, walks and days out should take Boston: 12% of the surrounding land is protected against 4% around New York, and 68 beaches nearby against 17, though the sea peaks at 19°C.

What the numbers don't tell you

No cost comparison is possible for these two. There is no daily budget figure for either, and the value figure they share is a national price level, identical by construction, so it tells you nothing about how they differ.

The sunshine total is missing for New York: no nearby station records it, so that side of the weather comparison is unmeasured rather than poor, and its monthly picture rests on temperature, rainfall and sea temperature alone. Boston's 68 beaches, meanwhile, sit on water peaking at 19°C in August, so the count describes coastline rather than swimming.

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.

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
New York
5
6
10
16
22
27
30
29
25
19
13
7
Sea temperature, °C
Boston
5
3
4
6
10
15
18
19
17
14
10
8
New York
6
4
5
8
13
18
22
23
21
17
13
9
Rainfall, mm
Boston
84
79
105
91
83
99
82
80
90
101
93
107
New York
83
74
102
97
91
103
107
112
98
97
80
104
Daylight, hours per day
Boston
10
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
New York
10
11
12
13
14
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Boston
5
5
6
7
8
8
9
9
7
5
5
4
New York
No sunshine record

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). New York: 1991-2020 normals, LaGuardia Airport (12.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Boston is the better pick in high summer. July and August bring highs of 28°C and 27°C with 80-82mm of rain, against New York's 107-112mm in the same months, and the sea reaches 18-19°C.

New York is stronger either side of that: May and June at 22-27°C, and September at 25°C with the sea still at 21°C, one of three months warm enough to swim. Both are cold and wet from December to March, 102-107mm in the wettest of those months.

Getting there

Flying fromBostonNew York
ChicagoORD, MDW, DPA, PWK +1
2 h 20 m
€176-196
BOS · 4 km
2 h 5 m
€236-237
LGA · 13 km
OrlandoMCO, SFB, ORL
2 h 45 m
no fares
BOS · 4 km
2 h 30 m
€207-260
LGA · 13 km
WashingtonIAD, DCA
1 h 25 m
€175-234
1 stop
BOS · 4 km
1 h 5 m
€203-258
LGA · 13 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
6 h 50 m
€536-548
1 stop
BOS · 4 km
7 h 10 m
€459-498
JFK · 21 km
TorontoYYZ, YHM, YTZ
1 h 30 m
€211-283
1 stop
BOS · 4 km
1 h 20 m
€206-234
LGA · 13 km
RaleighRDU
1 h 50 m
no fares
BOS · 4 km
1 h 30 m
€201-279
1 stop
LGA · 13 km
Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY
5 h 35 m
€289-344
1 stop
BOS · 4 km
5 h 20 m
€314-354
1 stop
JFK · 21 km
Punta CanaPUJ
3 h 50 m
no fares
BOS · 4 km
3 h 35 m
no fares
JFK · 21 km
TokyoHND, NRT
13 h 25 m
no fares
BOS · 4 km
13 h 30 m
€989-1136
JFK · 21 km
Tel Aviv YafoTLV
11 h 0 m
no fares
BOS · 4 km
11 h 25 m
€622-836
1 stop
JFK · 21 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 2026-09 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

MeasureBostonNew York
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation43 m25 m
Main airportBoston Logan International Airport (BOS)4 km from centre144 non-stop destinationsJohn F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)21 km from centre188 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureBostonNew York
City population675,6478,804,190
People per km²2,9107,256
Museums within 10 km51157
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
Distinct cuisines in the centre74132
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone3 months

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. 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.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-09-01. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.