VacationSelector

Como or Istanbul?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Como
34
match

Wins on nature & day trips with your weighting.

Istanbul
✓ Best match
65
match

Wins on nightlife and good for families with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

ComoIstanbul
Beaches & swimming. Istanbul leads by 43 points.43
ComoIstanbul
Score043
Swim season months03
Beaches 10 km82
Coast distance156 km0 km
Water distance0 km
Places to eat. Istanbul leads by 45 points.45
ComoIstanbul
Score2570
Restaurants within 2 km of centre2592,086
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km720
Museums & heritage. Istanbul leads by 20 points.20
ComoIstanbul
Score4666
Museums within 10 km9145
Museums within 2 km of centre671
Share of museums within 2 km %6749
Unesco sites within 50 km81
Nightlife. Istanbul leads by 55 points.55
ComoIstanbul
Score2479
Drinking venues within 4 km2132,266
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre1431,176
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %6752
Nightclubs within 4 km1221
Nature & day trips. Como leads by 15 points.15
ComoIstanbul
Score4025
Protected land share 50 km %231
Landscape blanket share 50 km %50
Land share of disc %10048
Park area within 2 km15 hectares60 hectares
Good for families. Istanbul leads by 52 points.52
ComoIstanbul
Score1567
Tourist attractions within 2 km668
Park area within 2 km15 hectares60 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km02
Sights concentration. Istanbul leads by 45 points.45
ComoIstanbul
Score3075
Notable places within 2 km22285
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Istanbul leads by 21 points.21
ComoIstanbul
Score6889
Price level global64.935.2
Daily budget€155€100
Year-round weather. Istanbul leads by 11 points.11
ComoIstanbul
Score5869
Monthly daytime high7.1 °C to 27.3 °C9.2 °C to 29.7 °C
Monthly rainfall61 mm to 178 mm23 mm to 101 mm
Dry months04
0255075100

When should you go?

The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Como
7
9
14
17
21
25
27
27
22
17
12
8
Istanbul
9
10
12
17
22
27
30
30
26
21
16
11
Sea temperature, °C
Como
No coastline within reach
Istanbul
9
8
9
11
16
21
23
24
22
19
15
12
Rainfall, mm
Como
69
61
76
138
178
172
158
158
168
150
167
80
Istanbul
74
74
66
47
29
29
23
29
43
85
79
101
Daylight, hours per day
Como
9
10
12
14
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
Istanbul
10
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Como
4
5
6
6
7
7
8
8
6
4
4
3
Istanbul
3
3
5
6
9
10
11
10
7
5
4
2

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Como: 1991-2020 normals, Lugano (23 km from centre). Istanbul: 1991-2020 normals, Istanbul / Goztepe (9.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromComoIstanbul
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 45 m
€48-103
MXP · 34 km
3 h 35 m
€110-186
IST · 36 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 20 m
€46-63
MXP · 34 km
3 h 15 m
€141-223
IST · 36 km
BarcelonaBCN
1 h 30 m
€34-53
MXP · 34 km
3 h 15 m
€179-269
IST · 36 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
8 h 15 m
€542-635
1 stop
MXP · 34 km
10 h 5 m
€608-794
IST · 36 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
6 h 10 m
€375-563
MXP · 34 km
4 h 15 m
€177-220
IST · 36 km
AntalyaAYT
3 h 5 m
no fares
MXP · 34 km
1 h 15 m
€54-87
SAW · 30 km
AthensATH
2 h 25 m
€91-99
MXP · 34 km
1 h 20 m
€128-154
IST · 36 km
IzmirADB
2 h 40 m
no fares
MXP · 34 km
1 h 5 m
€49-61
IST · 36 km
TashkentTAS
6 h 20 m
no fares
MXP · 34 km
4 h 35 m
€285-352
IST · 36 km
Sao PauloGRU, VCP, CGH, RTE
11 h 50 m
€1,114-1167
2 stops
MXP · 34 km
13 h 5 m
no fares
IST · 36 km

The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-08 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.

Before you go

MeasureComoIstanbul
Official languageItalianTurkish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Turkish Lira (TRY)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+3
Emergency number112112
Elevation201 m100 m
Main airportMilan Malpensa International Airport (MXP)34 km from centre203 non-stop destinationsİstanbul Airport (IST)36 km from centre345 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureComoIstanbul
City population83,18415,655,924
People per km²2,2422,930
Museums within 10 km972
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km81
Distinct cuisines in the centre2262
Swim season, months above 21 °C3 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Como or Istanbul somewhere new.

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.