VacationSelector
Beira Lake with Seema Malaka and the Lotus Tower, Colombo
ColomboBeira Lake with Seema Malaka and the Lotus Tower
Inverness Castle above the River Ness, Inverness
InvernessInverness Castle above the River Ness

Photos: Colombo by Mohamed Ansaf, Pexels License; Inverness by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Colombo 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 Colombo for

  • prices
  • beaches
  • food and drink

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

Choose Inverness for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • families
  • 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. Colombo 55, Inverness 20: Colombo leads by 35 points.
Food & drink. Colombo 66, Inverness 36: Colombo leads by 30 points.
Culture & sights. Colombo 45, Inverness 27: Colombo leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. Colombo 35, Inverness 28: Colombo leads by 7 points.
Nature & outdoors. Colombo 32, Inverness 84: Inverness leads by 52 points.
Day trips. Colombo 50, Inverness 56: Inverness leads by 6 points.
Good for families. Colombo 35, Inverness 55: Inverness leads by 20 points.
Getting around. Colombo 35, Inverness 48: Inverness leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Colombo 45, Inverness 30: Colombo leads by 15 points.
Affordability. Colombo 78, Inverness 38: Colombo leads by 40 points.
Live music & performing arts. Colombo 30, Inverness 33: Inverness leads by 3 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Colombo 48, Inverness 30: Colombo leads by 18 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Colombo and Inverness.

Your match

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

Colombo
Best match
46match

Wins on prices and beaches with your weighting.

Inverness
40match

Wins on nature and the outdoors 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.

Colombo in July

30 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
128 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
28 °Csea
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

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
ColomboInverness

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. Colombo: 1991-2020 normals, Colombo (3 km from centre). Inverness: 2005-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Inverness / Dalcross (11.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureColomboInverness
Official languageTamil, SinhalaEnglish
CurrencySri Lanka Rupee (LKR)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsGM230 V, 50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+5:30UTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 119, ambulance 110, fire 110112 or 999
Elevation1 m7 m
Main airportBandaranaike International Colombo Airport (CMB)28 km from centre56 non-stop destinationsInverness Airport (INV)12 km from centre15 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-10 days

By the numbers

MeasureColomboInverness
City population647,55747,380
People per km²17,3612,289
Museums within 10 km103
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Colombo 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). 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. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.