VacationSelector
Rozenhoedkaai and the Belfry, Bruges
BrugesRozenhoedkaai and the Belfry
Wat Chiang Man in the old city, Chiang Mai
Chiang MaiWat Chiang Man in the old city

Photos: Bruges by Michielverbeek, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Chiang Mai by Gije Cho, Pexels License.

Bruges or Chiang Mai?

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 Bruges for

  • getting around
  • day trips
  • beaches

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

Choose Chiang Mai for

  • prices
  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Chiang Mai’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. Bruges 28, Chiang Mai 6: Bruges leads by 22 points.
Food & drink. Bruges 56, Chiang Mai 78: Chiang Mai leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Bruges 75, Chiang Mai 65: Bruges leads by 10 points.
Nightlife. Bruges 27, Chiang Mai 45: Chiang Mai leads by 18 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bruges 40, Chiang Mai 73: Chiang Mai leads by 33 points.
Day trips. Bruges 85, Chiang Mai 48: Bruges leads by 37 points.
Good for families. Bruges 54, Chiang Mai 55: Chiang Mai leads by 1 points.
Getting around. Bruges 78, Chiang Mai 38: Bruges leads by 40 points.
Shopping & style. Bruges 45, Chiang Mai 62: Chiang Mai leads by 17 points.
Affordability. Bruges 36, Chiang Mai 90: Chiang Mai leads by 54 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bruges 40, Chiang Mai 30: Bruges leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bruges 40, Chiang Mai 82: Chiang Mai leads by 42 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bruges and Chiang Mai.

Your match

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

Bruges
50match

Wins on getting around and day trips with your weighting.

Chiang Mai
Best match
56match

Wins on prices 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.

Bruges in July

21 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
77 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
18 °Csea
16 hdaylight a day

Chiang Mai in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
No seasea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
BrugesChiang Mai

Where the figures come from

Bruges 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.

Bruges's sunshine is measured 37 km from the centre, at Vlissingen.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Bruges: 2009-2025 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Zeebrugge / Zeemanshaard (15.8 km from centre). Chiang Mai: 1991-2020 normals, Chiang Mai (0.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBrugesChiang Mai
Official languageFrench, German, DutchThai
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Baht (THB)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+7
Emergency number112Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation2 m310 m
Main airportBrussels Airport (BRU)94 km from centre191 non-stop destinationsChiang Mai International Airport (CNX)3 km from centre28 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days-

By the numbers

MeasureBrugesChiang Mai
City population118,5091,198,000
People per km²8402,958
Museums within 10 km386
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km30
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bruges or Chiang Mai 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.