VacationSelector
The Scott Monument and Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh
EdinburghThe Scott Monument and Princes Street Gardens
The steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi, New Orleans
New OrleansThe steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi

Photos: Edinburgh by Carlos Delgado, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; New Orleans by Bernard Spragg, CC0.

Edinburgh or New Orleans?

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 Edinburgh for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips
  • getting around

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

Choose New Orleans for

  • nightlife
  • food and drink
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on New Orleans’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. Edinburgh 22, New Orleans 14: Edinburgh leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. Edinburgh 53, New Orleans 84: New Orleans leads by 31 points.
Culture & sights. Edinburgh 75, New Orleans 67: Edinburgh leads by 8 points.
Nightlife. Edinburgh 50, New Orleans 85: New Orleans leads by 35 points.
Nature & outdoors. Edinburgh 75, New Orleans 42: Edinburgh leads by 33 points.
Day trips. Edinburgh 75, New Orleans 52: Edinburgh leads by 23 points.
Good for families. Edinburgh 62, New Orleans 55: Edinburgh leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Edinburgh 74, New Orleans 55: Edinburgh leads by 19 points.
Shopping & style. Edinburgh 50, New Orleans 54: New Orleans leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Edinburgh 30, New Orleans 40: New Orleans leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. Edinburgh 72, New Orleans 80: New Orleans leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Edinburgh 34, New Orleans 25: Edinburgh leads by 9 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Edinburgh and New Orleans.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Edinburgh
56match

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

New Orleans
54match

Wins on nightlife and food and drink with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Edinburgh in July

19 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
66 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
14 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

New Orleans in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
169 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
EdinburghNew Orleans

Where the figures come from

Edinburgh 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.

Edinburgh's sunshine is measured 52 km from the centre, at Leuchars.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Edinburgh: 1991-2020 normals, Edinburgh Airport (10 km from centre). New Orleans: 1991-2020 normals, New Orleans Airport (2.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureEdinburghNew Orleans
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-6, UTC-5 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation47 m-2 m
Main airportEdinburgh Airport (EDI)11 km from centre163 non-stop destinationsLouis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)18 km from centre51 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureEdinburghNew Orleans
City population488,050383,997
People per km²1,884423
Museums within 10 km3216
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km30
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone7 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Edinburgh or New Orleans 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). 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. 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.