VacationSelector
Lion's Head above Clifton Beach, Cape Town
Cape TownLion's Head above Clifton Beach
The Aare at Unterseen, Interlaken, Interlaken
InterlakenThe Aare at Unterseen, Interlaken

Photos: Cape Town by Stephan Louis, Pexels License; Interlaken by Roy Egloff, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cape Town or Interlaken?

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 Cape Town for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

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

Choose Interlaken for

  • getting around
  • families
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Interlaken’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. Cape Town 58, Interlaken 30: Cape Town leads by 28 points.
Food & drink. Cape Town 72, Interlaken 25: Cape Town leads by 47 points.
Culture & sights. Cape Town 60, Interlaken 8: Cape Town leads by 52 points.
Nightlife. Cape Town 60, Interlaken 15: Cape Town leads by 45 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cape Town 98, Interlaken 97: Cape Town leads by 1 points.
Day trips. Cape Town 68, Interlaken 78: Interlaken leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Cape Town 58, Interlaken 72: Interlaken leads by 14 points.
Getting around. Cape Town 35, Interlaken 80: Interlaken leads by 45 points.
Shopping & style. Cape Town 50, Interlaken 22: Cape Town leads by 28 points.
Affordability. Cape Town 72, Interlaken 8: Cape Town leads by 64 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cape Town 52, Interlaken 15: Cape Town leads by 37 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cape Town 45, Interlaken 40: Cape Town leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cape Town and Interlaken.

Your match

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

Cape Town
Best match
61match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Interlaken
41match

Wins on getting around and families with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Cape Town in July

18 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
89 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
15 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Interlaken in July

24 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
126 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
Cape TownInterlaken

Where the figures come from

Interlaken 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.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cape Town: 1991-2020 normals, Cape Town Airport (17.5 km from centre). Interlaken: 2005-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Meiringen / Unterbach (19.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCape TownInterlaken
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign LanguageFrench, German, Italian, Romansh
CurrencyRand (ZAR)Swiss Franc (CHF)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzCJ230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation5 m571 m
Main airportCape Town International Airport (CPT)18 km from centre45 non-stop destinationsZürich Airport (ZRH)100 km from centre226 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureCape TownInterlaken
City population3,776,3136,123
People per km²1,5381,424
Museums within 10 km223
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km32
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cape Town or Interlaken 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). 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.