VacationSelector
Wat Chiang Man in the old city, Chiang Mai
Chiang MaiWat Chiang Man in the old city
Inverness Castle above the River Ness, Inverness
InvernessInverness Castle above the River Ness

Photos: Chiang Mai by Gije Cho, Pexels License; Inverness by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Chiang Mai or Inverness?

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 Chiang Mai for

  • prices
  • wellness
  • food and drink

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

Choose Inverness for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Inverness’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. Chiang Mai 6, Inverness 20: Inverness leads by 14 points.
Food & drink. Chiang Mai 78, Inverness 36: Chiang Mai leads by 42 points.
Culture & sights. Chiang Mai 65, Inverness 27: Chiang Mai leads by 38 points.
Nightlife. Chiang Mai 45, Inverness 28: Chiang Mai leads by 17 points.
Nature & outdoors. Chiang Mai 73, Inverness 84: Inverness leads by 11 points.
Day trips. Chiang Mai 48, Inverness 56: Inverness leads by 8 points.
Good for families. Chiang Mai and Inverness are level on 55.
Getting around. Chiang Mai 38, Inverness 48: Inverness leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Chiang Mai 62, Inverness 30: Chiang Mai leads by 32 points.
Affordability. Chiang Mai 90, Inverness 38: Chiang Mai leads by 52 points.
Live music & performing arts. Chiang Mai 30, Inverness 33: Inverness leads by 3 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Chiang Mai 82, Inverness 30: Chiang Mai leads by 52 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Chiang Mai and Inverness.

Your match

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

Chiang Mai
Best match
56match

Wins on prices and wellness with your weighting.

Inverness
40match

Wins on beaches 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.

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

Inverness in July

19 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
69 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
14 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Chiang MaiInverness

Where the figures come from

Inverness 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.

Inverness's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Kinloss.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Chiang Mai: 1991-2020 normals, Chiang Mai (0.6 km from centre). Inverness: 2005-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Inverness / Dalcross (11.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureChiang MaiInverness
Official languageThaiEnglish
CurrencyBaht (THB)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsABCF220 V, 50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+7UTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199112 or 999
Elevation310 m7 m
Main airportChiang Mai International Airport (CNX)3 km from centre28 non-stop destinationsInverness Airport (INV)12 km from centre15 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-10 days

By the numbers

MeasureChiang MaiInverness
City population1,198,00047,380
People per km²2,9582,289
Museums within 10 km63
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C-None

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Chiang Mai or Inverness 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. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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.