VacationSelector
The Scott Monument and Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh
EdinburghThe Scott Monument and Princes Street Gardens
Brooklyn Bridge and Lower Manhattan, New York
New YorkBrooklyn Bridge and Lower Manhattan

Photos: Edinburgh by Carlos Delgado, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; New York by Jakub Hałun, CC BY 4.0, cropped.

Edinburgh or New York?

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
  • prices
  • day trips

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

Choose New York for

  • nightlife
  • shopping
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on New York’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 York 50: New York leads by 28 points.
Food & drink. Edinburgh 53, New York 92: New York leads by 39 points.
Culture & sights. Edinburgh 75, New York 89: New York leads by 14 points.
Nightlife. Edinburgh 50, New York 97: New York leads by 47 points.
Nature & outdoors. Edinburgh 75, New York 55: Edinburgh leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Edinburgh 75, New York 68: Edinburgh leads by 7 points.
Good for families. Edinburgh 62, New York 70: New York leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Edinburgh 74, New York 82: New York leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Edinburgh 50, New York 97: New York leads by 47 points.
Affordability. Edinburgh 30, New York 12: Edinburgh leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. Edinburgh 72, New York 99: New York leads by 27 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Edinburgh 34, New York 42: New York leads by 8 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Edinburgh and New York.

Your match

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

Edinburgh
56match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and prices with your weighting.

New York
Best match
71match

Wins on nightlife and shopping 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 York in July

30 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
107 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
22 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
EdinburghNew York

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 York: 1991-2020 normals, LaGuardia Airport (12.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureEdinburghNew York
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation47 m25 m
Main airportEdinburgh Airport (EDI)11 km from centre163 non-stop destinationsJohn F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)21 km from centre189 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureEdinburghNew York
City population488,0508,804,190
People per km²1,8847,256
Museums within 10 km32157
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km32
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone3 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Edinburgh or New York 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.