VacationSelector
The pastel houses of Rainbow Row, Charleston
CharlestonThe pastel houses of Rainbow Row
The floating torii of Itsukushima at Miyajima, Hiroshima
HiroshimaThe floating torii of Itsukushima at Miyajima

Photos: Charleston by NealVickers, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Hiroshima by Guohua Song, Pexels License.

Charleston or Hiroshima?

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 Charleston for

  • beaches
  • food and drink
  • culture and sights

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

Choose Hiroshima for

  • prices
  • getting around
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Hiroshima’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. Charleston 72, Hiroshima 30: Charleston leads by 42 points.
Food & drink. Charleston 72, Hiroshima 66: Charleston leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Charleston 64, Hiroshima 60: Charleston leads by 4 points.
Nightlife. Charleston 44, Hiroshima 45: Hiroshima leads by 1 points.
Nature & outdoors. Charleston 55, Hiroshima 62: Hiroshima leads by 7 points.
Day trips. Charleston 62, Hiroshima 80: Hiroshima leads by 18 points.
Good for families. Charleston and Hiroshima are level on 60.
Getting around. Charleston 46, Hiroshima 74: Hiroshima leads by 28 points.
Shopping & style. Charleston 55, Hiroshima 52: Charleston leads by 3 points.
Affordability. Charleston 27, Hiroshima 58: Hiroshima leads by 31 points.
Live music & performing arts. Charleston 42, Hiroshima 38: Charleston leads by 4 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Charleston 40, Hiroshima 50: Hiroshima leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Charleston and Hiroshima.

Your match

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

Charleston
53match

Wins on beaches and food and drink with your weighting.

Hiroshima
Best match
56match

Wins on prices and getting around with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Charleston in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
167 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Hiroshima in July

31 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
299 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
24 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
CharlestonHiroshima

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Charleston: 1991-2020 normals, Charleston Airport (16.1 km from centre). Hiroshima: 1991-2020 normals, Hiroshima (1.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCharlestonHiroshima
Official language-Japanese
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Yen (JPY)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+9
Emergency number911Police 110, fire 119
Elevation6 m3 m
Main airportCharleston International Airport (CHS)16 km from centre56 non-stop destinationsHiroshima Airport (HIJ)43 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureCharlestonHiroshima
City population150,2271,198,021
People per km²5321,324
Museums within 10 km1918
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
Swim season, months above 21 °C6 months4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Charleston or Hiroshima 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. 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.