VacationSelector
Skiers and chairlifts on the slopes in sunshine, Deer Valley
Deer ValleySkiers and chairlifts on the slopes in sunshine
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera

Photos: Deer Valley by Don Ramey Logan, CC BY 4.0, cropped; Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License.

Deer Valley or Kyoto?

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 Deer Valley for

  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Kyoto for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Kyoto’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. Deer Valley 10, Kyoto 15: Kyoto leads by 5 points.
Food & drink. Deer Valley 38, Kyoto 85: Kyoto leads by 47 points.
Culture & sights. Deer Valley 15, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 81 points.
Nightlife. Deer Valley 25, Kyoto 35: Kyoto leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Deer Valley 90, Kyoto 70: Deer Valley leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Deer Valley 38, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 58 points.
Good for families. Deer Valley 60, Kyoto 68: Kyoto leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Deer Valley 50, Kyoto 72: Kyoto leads by 22 points.
Shopping & style. Deer Valley 25, Kyoto 72: Kyoto leads by 47 points.
Affordability. Deer Valley 4, Kyoto 50: Kyoto leads by 46 points.
Live music & performing arts. Deer Valley 30, Kyoto 60: Kyoto leads by 30 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Deer Valley 52, Kyoto 70: Kyoto leads by 18 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Deer Valley and Kyoto.

Your match

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

Deer Valley
36match

Wins on nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Kyoto
Best match
66match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Deer Valley in July

28 °Cdaytime high
13 °Cnight-time low
23 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Kyoto in July

31 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
225 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Deer ValleyKyoto

Where the figures come from

Deer Valley's temperatures are measured 82 km from the centre, at Evanston.

Deer Valley's station stands 297 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Deer Valley 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.

Kyoto's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Osaka.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Deer Valley: 1999-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Evanston (81.9 km from centre). Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureDeer ValleyKyoto
Official language-Japanese
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Yen (JPY)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-7, UTC-6 in summerUTC+9
Emergency number911Police 110, fire 119
Elevation2,474 m51 m
Main airportSalt Lake City International Airport (SLC)45 km from centre108 non-stop destinationsKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureDeer ValleyKyoto
City population-1,463,723
People per km²-1,768
Museums within 10 km077
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km04
Swim season, months above 21 °C-5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Deer Valley or Kyoto somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national 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). 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.