VacationSelector

Dublin or Edinburgh?

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

Your match

Dublin
55
match

Wins on value for money and year-round weather with your weighting.

Edinburgh
✓ Best match
58
match

Wins on good for families and nature & day trips with your weighting.

What matters to you?

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

The verdict

Choose Dublin if museums are the point of the trip, it has about twice as many, and if you want the marginally milder year, with daytime highs of 8-20°C.

Choose Edinburgh if you are travelling with children: about twice as many attractions near the centre, far more park space close in, and 20 beaches along the coast rather than a handful.

Scoreboard

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

DublinEdinburgh
Beaches & swimming. Edinburgh leads by 6 points.6
DublinEdinburgh
Score4955
Swim season months00
Beaches 10 km1120
Coast distance3 km3 km
Water distance3 km3 km
Places to eat. Dublin and Edinburgh are level on 70.
DublinEdinburgh
Score7070
Restaurants within 2 km of centre9201,023
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km3735
Museums & heritage. Edinburgh leads by 2 points.2
DublinEdinburgh
Score5557
Museums within 10 km4730
Museums within 2 km of centre3722
Share of museums within 2 km %7973
Unesco sites within 50 km13
Nightlife. Dublin and Edinburgh are level on 64.
DublinEdinburgh
Score6464
Drinking venues within 4 km1,2391,193
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre934884
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7574
Nightclubs within 4 km4065
Nature & day trips. Edinburgh leads by 9 points.9
DublinEdinburgh
Score2635
Protected land share 50 km %32
Landscape blanket share 50 km %01
Land share of disc %6285
Park area within 2 km43 hectares166 hectares
Good for families. Edinburgh leads by 18 points.18
DublinEdinburgh
Score5472
Tourist attractions within 2 km4187
Park area within 2 km43 hectares166 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km10
Sights concentration. Dublin leads by 2 points.2
DublinEdinburgh
Score6260
Notable places within 2 km141126
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Dublin leads by 3 points.3
DublinEdinburgh
Score5754
Price level global80.284.9
Daily budget€187—
Year-round weather. Dublin leads by 3 points.3
DublinEdinburgh
Score5451
Monthly daytime high8.2 °C to 19.5 °C6.6 °C to 18.8 °C
Monthly rainfall52 mm to 83 mm43 mm to 80 mm
Dry months00
0255075100

Where they differ

Dublin's advantage is indoors and inland: about twice as many museums, and 1 theme park within reach where Edinburgh has none. Slightly more of the surrounding land is protected, 3% against 2%, and the sea peaks marginally warmer in August, at 15°C.

Edinburgh is the easier city with children, with about twice as many tourist attractions near the centre and far more park space close in. Its coast is better served: 20 beaches nearby against Dublin's 11, the sea 3km from either centre.

Where they are alike

Eating out is where the two are indistinguishable: a similar number of restaurants near the centre in each, and a similar spread of kitchens.

Nights out match as well, with comparable numbers of places to drink, most of them central, and both fit a similar number of notable places into walking distance of the centre. Heritage is near-even in the round: Dublin holds more museums, while Edinburgh has 3 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Dublin's 1.

Which traveller are you?

Travelling with children: Edinburgh. Roughly twice as many tourist attractions sit near the centre, with far more park space close in, and 20 beaches along the coast. Dublin's counter is 1 theme park within reach.

Museum-minded weekender: Dublin, which holds about twice as many museums, enough to fill several wet days indoors. Edinburgh answers with 3 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Dublin's 1, if the trip runs wider than the city.

Out late: either works. Both have a similar number of places to drink, mostly central, but Edinburgh has about twice as many nightclubs, so it is the pick if the night runs long.

What the numbers don't tell you

No cost comparison is possible here. The dataset carries a daily budget for Dublin, about €187, and nothing equivalent for Edinburgh, so the value axis rests on a different figure and should not be read as a price ranking.

The beach counts flatter both coasts. Neither city has a month with sea at 21°C or more, and the water peaks at 15°C in August, so those beaches are for walking more than swimming. Rainfall is the same trap: no month in either city falls to 40mm or less, so a warm month is not a dry one.

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
Dublin
8
9
10
12
15
18
20
19
17
14
10
8
Edinburgh
7
7
9
12
14
17
19
19
17
13
9
7
Sea temperature, °C
Dublin
9
8
8
9
11
13
15
15
15
13
12
11
Edinburgh
7
6
6
7
10
12
14
14
13
12
10
8
Rainfall, mm
Dublin
62
52
52
55
58
65
62
74
61
78
83
72
Edinburgh
62
47
47
43
49
63
65
69
55
80
68
63
Daylight, hours per day
Dublin
8
10
12
14
16
17
17
15
13
11
9
8
Edinburgh
8
10
12
14
16
18
17
15
13
11
8
7
Sunshine, hours per day
Dublin
2
3
4
5
6
6
5
5
4
3
2
2
Edinburgh
2
3
4
5
6
5
5
5
4
3
3
2

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Dublin: 1991-2020 normals, Dublin Airport (9.3 km from centre). Edinburgh: 1991-2020 normals, Edinburgh Airport (10 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Dublin peaks in July, with highs of 20°C, and the sea is at its warmest in August, 15°C. Rain is steady rather than seasonal: 62mm in July, 74mm in August, and the wettest stretch comes late, 83mm in November.

Edinburgh's drier run is spring, 43mm in April and 47mm in March, though highs are only 9-12°C then. July and August reach 19°C. October is the wettest month in both, 80mm in Edinburgh against Dublin's 78mm.

Getting there

Flying fromDublinEdinburgh
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 10 m
€33-43
DUB · 9 km
1 h 20 m
€41-45
EDI · 11 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 35 m
€43-47
DUB · 9 km
1 h 40 m
€78-108
1 stop
EDI · 11 km
AmsterdamAMS
1 h 35 m
€80-139
DUB · 9 km
1 h 25 m
€117-158
EDI · 11 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
6 h 40 m
no fares
DUB · 9 km
6 h 50 m
no fares
EDI · 11 km
MalagaAGP
2 h 50 m
no fares
DUB · 9 km
3 h 10 m
no fares
EDI · 11 km
MilanMXP, BGY, LIN
2 h 20 m
€53-95
DUB · 9 km
2 h 20 m
€75-101
1 stop
EDI · 11 km
PalmaPMI
2 h 40 m
no fares
DUB · 9 km
2 h 55 m
no fares
EDI · 11 km
BarcelonaBCN
2 h 25 m
€71-105
DUB · 9 km
2 h 40 m
€58-103
1 stop
EDI · 11 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
7 h 40 m
no fares
DUB · 9 km
7 h 30 m
no fares
EDI · 11 km
CancunCUN
9 h 30 m
no fares
DUB · 9 km
9 h 40 m
no fares
GLA · 78 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

MeasureDublinEdinburgh
Official languageEnglish, IrishEnglish
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency number112112 or 999
Elevation20 m47 m
Main airportDublin Airport (DUB)9 km from centre201 non-stop destinationsEdinburgh Airport (EDI)11 km from centre158 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureDublinEdinburgh
City population592,713488,050
People per km²5,1541,884
Museums within 10 km4032
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km13
Distinct cuisines in the centre7478
Swim season, months above 21 °CNoneNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Dublin or Edinburgh 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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. 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 2026-09-01. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.