VacationSelector

Cusco or Istanbul?

Two destinations compared in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

The Plaza de Armas with the cathedral and La Compañía, Cusco
Cusco

Photo: Pedro Szekely, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped

The Blue Mosque, Istanbul
Istanbul

Photo: AXP Photography, Pexels License

Your match

Cusco
49
match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and day trips with your weighting.

Istanbul
✓ Best match
67
match

Wins on families and beaches with your weighting.

What matters to you?

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

Scoreboard

Our verdict on each category, scored 0 to 100 against fixed benchmark cities.

CuscoIstanbul
Beaches & swimming. Istanbul leads by 42 points.42
Food & drink. Istanbul leads by 31 points.31
Culture & sights. Istanbul leads by 9 points.9
Nightlife. Istanbul leads by 35 points.35
Nature & outdoors. Cusco leads by 34 points.34
Day trips. Cusco leads by 23 points.23
Good for families. Istanbul leads by 45 points.45
Getting around. Istanbul leads by 14 points.14
Shopping & style. Istanbul leads by 34 points.34
Affordability. Cusco leads by 13 points.13
Live music & performing arts. Istanbul leads by 32 points.32
Wellness & relaxation. Istanbul leads by 42 points.42
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cusco and Istanbul.

When should you go?

Pick the month you can travel and see both cities side by side. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Climate figures for July
JulyCuscoIstanbul
Daytime high20 °C30 °C
Night-time low1 °C21 °C
Rainfall in the month5 mm23 mm
SunshineNo figure11 hours a day
Sea temperatureNo sea23 °C
Daylight11 hours a day15 hours a day

The whole year

Each row is shaded against that destination’s own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that figure 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
Cusco
20
19
20
20
21
21
20
21
21
21
22
20
Istanbul
9
10
12
17
22
27
30
30
26
21
16
11
Sea temperature, °C
Cusco
No coastline within reach
Istanbul
9
8
9
11
16
21
23
24
22
19
15
12
Rainfall, mm
Cusco
159
133
106
36
7
3
5
6
17
50
78
127
Istanbul
74
74
66
47
29
29
23
29
43
85
79
101
Daylight, hours per day
Cusco
13
13
12
12
12
11
11
12
12
12
13
13
Istanbul
10
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Cusco
No sunshine record
Istanbul
3
3
5
6
9
10
11
10
7
5
4
2

Where the figures come from

Cusco's station stands 151 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cusco: 1991-2020 normals, Cuzco (3.7 km from centre). Istanbul: 1991-2020 normals, Istanbul / Goztepe (9.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromCuscoIstanbul
SantiagoSCL
3 h 15 m
no fares
CUZ · 5 km
16 h 5 m
no fares
IST · 36 km
BogotaBOG
3 h 5 m
€424-527
1 stop
CUZ · 5 km
13 h 15 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 2026-11 to 2026-12, 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

MeasureCuscoIstanbul
Official languageSpanish, Aymara, QuechuaTurkish
CurrencySol (PEN)Turkish Lira (TRY)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+3
Emergency number111 or 911112
Elevation3,399 m100 m
Main airportAlejandro Velasco Astete International Airport (CUZ)5 km from centre6 non-stop destinationsİstanbul Airport (IST)36 km from centre342 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureCuscoIstanbul
City population428,45015,655,924
People per km²-2,930
Museums within 10 km1172
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Swim season, months above 21 °C-3 months

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate and flight figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-27. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.