VacationSelector
The pastel houses of Rainbow Row, Charleston
CharlestonThe pastel houses of Rainbow Row
The clock tower in the old town, Kotor
KotorThe clock tower in the old town

Photos: Charleston by NealVickers, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Kotor by Muhammed Fatih Beki, Pexels License.

Charleston or Kotor?

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

  • food and drink
  • shopping
  • families

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

Choose Kotor for

  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Kotor’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, Kotor 57: Charleston leads by 15 points.
Food & drink. Charleston 72, Kotor 37: Charleston leads by 35 points.
Culture & sights. Charleston 64, Kotor 55: Charleston leads by 9 points.
Nightlife. Charleston 44, Kotor 30: Charleston leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. Charleston 55, Kotor 80: Kotor leads by 25 points.
Day trips. Charleston 62, Kotor 72: Kotor leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Charleston 60, Kotor 36: Charleston leads by 24 points.
Getting around. Charleston 46, Kotor 48: Kotor leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Charleston 55, Kotor 20: Charleston leads by 35 points.
Affordability. Charleston 27, Kotor 57: Kotor leads by 30 points.
Live music & performing arts. Charleston 42, Kotor 20: Charleston leads by 22 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Charleston 40, Kotor 24: Charleston leads by 16 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Charleston and Kotor.

Your match

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

Charleston
Best match
53match

Wins on food and drink and shopping with your weighting.

Kotor
45match

Wins on prices and nature and the outdoors 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

Kotor in July

31 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
39 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
CharlestonKotor

Where the figures come from

Kotor 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.

Kotor's sunshine is measured 42 km from the centre, at Podgorica-Grad.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Charleston: 1991-2020 normals, Charleston Airport (16.1 km from centre). Kotor: 1991-2020 normals, Tivat (4.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCharlestonKotor
Official language-Montenegrin
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation6 m10 m
Main airportCharleston International Airport (CHS)16 km from centre56 non-stop destinationsTivat Airport (TIV)5 km from centre42 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days-

By the numbers

MeasureCharlestonKotor
City population150,227562
People per km²532-
Museums within 10 km193
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km03
Swim season, months above 21 °C6 months5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Charleston or Kotor 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. 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.