VacationSelector
The Scott Monument and Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh
EdinburghThe Scott Monument and Princes Street Gardens
Palms at CityPlace on Rosemary Avenue, West Palm Beach
West Palm BeachPalms at CityPlace on Rosemary Avenue

Photos: Edinburgh by Carlos Delgado, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; West Palm Beach by Michael Rivera, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Edinburgh or West Palm Beach?

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

  • getting around
  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose West Palm Beach for

  • beaches
  • shopping
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on West Palm Beach’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, West Palm Beach 80: West Palm Beach leads by 58 points.
Food & drink. Edinburgh 53, West Palm Beach 52: Edinburgh leads by 1 points.
Culture & sights. Edinburgh 75, West Palm Beach 42: Edinburgh leads by 33 points.
Nightlife. Edinburgh 50, West Palm Beach 36: Edinburgh leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. Edinburgh 75, West Palm Beach 58: Edinburgh leads by 17 points.
Day trips. Edinburgh 75, West Palm Beach 55: Edinburgh leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Edinburgh 62, West Palm Beach 66: West Palm Beach leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Edinburgh 74, West Palm Beach 38: Edinburgh leads by 36 points.
Shopping & style. Edinburgh 50, West Palm Beach 64: West Palm Beach leads by 14 points.
Affordability. Edinburgh 30, West Palm Beach 23: Edinburgh leads by 7 points.
Live music & performing arts. Edinburgh 72, West Palm Beach 47: Edinburgh leads by 25 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Edinburgh 34, West Palm Beach 44: West Palm Beach leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Edinburgh and West Palm Beach.

Your match

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

Edinburgh
Best match
56match

Wins on getting around and culture and sights with your weighting.

West Palm Beach
50match

Wins on beaches 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

West Palm Beach in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
145 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
EdinburghWest Palm Beach

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). West Palm Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Palm Beach International (5.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureEdinburghWest Palm Beach
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 m6 m
Main airportEdinburgh Airport (EDI)11 km from centre163 non-stop destinationsPresident Donald J. Trump International Airport (DJT)6 km from centre42 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureEdinburghWest Palm Beach
City population488,050117,415
People per km²1,884786
Museums within 10 km324
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km30
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Edinburgh or West Palm Beach 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.