VacationSelector
Cloud Gate in Millennium Park, Chicago
ChicagoCloud Gate in Millennium Park
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
GlasgowKelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

Photos: Chicago by Jesus Toledo, Pexels License; Glasgow by Stinglehammer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Chicago or Glasgow?

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 Chicago for

  • beaches
  • food and drink
  • families

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

Choose Glasgow for

  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Glasgow’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. Chicago 50, Glasgow 14: Chicago leads by 36 points.
Food & drink. Chicago 80, Glasgow 52: Chicago leads by 28 points.
Culture & sights. Chicago 78, Glasgow 62: Chicago leads by 16 points.
Nightlife. Chicago 77, Glasgow 66: Chicago leads by 11 points.
Nature & outdoors. Chicago 48, Glasgow 75: Glasgow leads by 27 points.
Day trips. Chicago 42, Glasgow 76: Glasgow leads by 34 points.
Good for families. Chicago 78, Glasgow 58: Chicago leads by 20 points.
Getting around. Chicago 72, Glasgow 66: Chicago leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. Chicago 70, Glasgow 64: Chicago leads by 6 points.
Affordability. Chicago 33, Glasgow 46: Glasgow leads by 13 points.
Live music & performing arts. Chicago 82, Glasgow 72: Chicago leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Chicago 33, Glasgow 28: Chicago leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Chicago and Glasgow.

Your match

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

Chicago
Best match
62match

Wins on beaches and food and drink with your weighting.

Glasgow
57match

Wins on day trips 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.

Chicago in July

29 °Cdaytime high
20 °Cnight-time low
102 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
21 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Glasgow in July

19 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
85 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
15 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
ChicagoGlasgow

Where the figures come from

Glasgow 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.

Glasgow's sunshine is measured 90 km from the centre, at Eskdalemuir.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Chicago: 1991-2020 normals, Chicago Midway Airport (14.5 km from centre). Glasgow: 1991-2020 normals, Glasgow Airport (11.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureChicagoGlasgow
Official language-English
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6, UTC-5 in summerUTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency number911112 or 999
Elevation179 m21 m
Main airportChicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)25 km from centre274 non-stop destinationsGlasgow Airport (GLA)11 km from centre95 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureChicagoGlasgow
City population2,746,388626,410
People per km²4,529190
Museums within 10 km4429
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12
Swim season, months above 21 °C1 monthNone

Where else could you go?

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