Fort Lauderdale or New Orleans?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Too close to call, 2 points apart
Wins on nature & day trips and beaches & swimming with your weighting.
Wins on sights concentration and good for families 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 Fort Lauderdale if the trip is built around water and open space: the sea starts at the centre, 7 beaches sit nearby, and it stays swimmable in every month of the year.
Choose New Orleans if you would rather walk to things: museums, restaurants and bars sit close together around the centre, and there is far more to see on foot.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Fort Lauderdale leads by 45 points.45
| Fort Lauderdale | New Orleans | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 84 | 39 |
| Swim season months | 12 | 7 |
| Beaches 10 km | 7 | 3 |
| Coast distance | 0 km | 21 km |
| Water distance | 0 km | 17 km |
Places to eat. New Orleans leads by 16 points.16
| Fort Lauderdale | New Orleans | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 45 | 61 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 371 | 803 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 18 | 25 |
Museums & heritage. New Orleans leads by 25 points.25
| Fort Lauderdale | New Orleans | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 20 | 45 |
| Museums within 10 km | 14 | 42 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 6 | 30 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 43 | 71 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 0 | 0 |
Nightlife. New Orleans leads by 20 points.20
| Fort Lauderdale | New Orleans | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 34 | 54 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 259 | 704 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 144 | 495 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 56 | 70 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 18 | 41 |
Nature & day trips. Fort Lauderdale leads by 56 points.56
| Fort Lauderdale | New Orleans | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 81 | 25 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 20 | 4 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 51 | 89 |
| Park area within 2 km | 45 hectares | 43 hectares |
Good for families. New Orleans leads by 27 points.27
| Fort Lauderdale | New Orleans | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 19 | 46 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 2 | 22 |
| Park area within 2 km | 45 hectares | 43 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 1 |
Sights concentration. New Orleans leads by 40 points.40
| Fort Lauderdale | New Orleans | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 40 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 2 | 40 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Fort Lauderdale and New Orleans are level on 43.
| Fort Lauderdale | New Orleans | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 43 | 43 |
| Price level global | 100 | 100 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Fort Lauderdale leads by 8 points.8
| Fort Lauderdale | New Orleans | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 76 | 68 |
| Monthly daytime high | 24.2 °C to 32.3 °C | 17.1 °C to 33 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 55 mm to 219 mm | 94 mm to 194 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 0 |
Where they differ
Fort Lauderdale puts the water at the door: the sea is 0km from the centre against 17km, with 7 beaches nearby rather than 3, and it is swimmable all year rather than for seven months. Around the city, 20% of the land is protected against 4%.
New Orleans is the denser place: far more notable sites within walking distance of the centre, several times as many museums and clustered tightly, and about twice as many restaurants near the centre, across a wider range of kitchens.
Where they are alike
Both are warm cities rather than mild ones. Fort Lauderdale runs 24-32°C across the year and New Orleans 17-33°C, and rain is part of any visit: neither has a month at 40mm or less.
Both also give you somewhere to eat and drink near the centre, with a choice of kitchens and bars and clubs afterwards, though New Orleans concentrates its drinking places around the centre more tightly than Fort Lauderdale does.
Which traveller are you?
Beach-first travellers should take Fort Lauderdale. The sea begins at the centre, there are 7 beaches within reach, and it stays swimmable in every month of the year, so there is no season to wait for.
Anyone who travels for museums, restaurants and bars should take New Orleans. All three sit close together around the centre, so an evening needs little planning and walking distances stay short.
Families are better served in New Orleans too, with many more attractions near the centre and 1 theme park within reach. Park space is much the same in both, so Fort Lauderdale's edge outdoors lies in the protected land around it.
What the numbers don't tell you
Fort Lauderdale's beach standing rests on distance, beach count and sea temperature; it says nothing about how crowded the sand gets in the drier winter months, which are also its most appealing months on the weather figures. Sunshine is a separate gap: no weather station near either city records it, so that series is missing rather than low, and the monthly picture rests on temperature, rainfall and sea temperature alone.
The value comparison carries no information here. It is a national price level, identical for both by construction, and there is no daily budget figure for either city, so the two cannot be compared on cost at all.
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.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Fort Lauderdale: 1991-2020 normals, Fort Lauderdale (7.1 km from centre). New Orleans: 1991-2020 normals, New Orleans Airport (2.7 km from centre).
Fort Lauderdale is at its best from November to March, when highs sit at 24-27°C and rain falls at 55-91mm a month. May to September is the wet half, 159-219mm a month, even as the sea reaches its warmest.
New Orleans peaks in October, dry by its own standards at 94mm, with highs of 27°C, and April is the other good window. Midwinter is cool, with January highs of 17°C, and high summer is hot and heavy.
Getting there
| Flying from | Fort Lauderdale | New Orleans |
|---|---|---|
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 2 h 40 m €140-271 1 stop FLL · 7 km | 2 h 55 m €254-325 1 stop MSY · 18 km |
| ChicagoORD, MDW, DPA, PWK +1 | 2 h 55 m €119-159 FLL · 7 km | 2 h 15 m €208-268 1 stop MSY · 18 km |
| WashingtonIAD, DCA | 2 h 25 m €164-177 FLL · 7 km | 2 h 30 m no fares MSY · 18 km |
| DallasDFW, DAL, AFW | 2 h 45 m €133-174 FLL · 7 km | 1 h 30 m no fares MSY · 18 km |
| PhiladelphiaPHL, TTN | 2 h 35 m €125-184 FLL · 7 km | 2 h 45 m no fares MSY · 18 km |
| TorontoYYZ, YHM, YTZ | 3 h 0 m €167-168 FLL · 7 km | 2 h 45 m no fares MSY · 18 km |
| AtlantaATL, PDK | 1 h 45 m €93-112 FLL · 7 km | 1 h 30 m €106-150 1 stop MSY · 18 km |
| HoustonIAH, HOU | 2 h 30 m no fares FLL · 7 km | 1 h 15 m no fares MSY · 18 km |
| CancunCUN | 1 h 40 m no fares FLL · 7 km | 1 h 55 m no fares MSY · 18 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 9 h 0 m €550-628 1 stop MIA · 41 km | 9 h 25 m no fares MSY · 18 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
| Measure | Fort Lauderdale | New Orleans |
|---|---|---|
| Currency | US Dollar (USD) | US Dollar (USD) |
| Sockets | AB120 V, 60 Hz | AB120 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer | UTC-6, UTC-5 in summer |
| Emergency number | 911 | 911 |
| Elevation | 11 m | -2 m |
| Main airport | Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL)7 km from centre125 non-stop destinations | Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)18 km from centre50 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 11 days | 14 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Fort Lauderdale | New Orleans |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 182,760 | 383,997 |
| People per km² | 1,829 | 423 |
| Museums within 10 km | 6 | 16 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 0 | 0 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 25 | 39 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 12 months | 7 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Fort Lauderdale or New Orleans somewhere new.