VacationSelector
Galway Cathedral from the River Corrib, Galway
GalwayGalway Cathedral from the River Corrib
The steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi, New Orleans
New OrleansThe steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi

Photos: Galway by Dieglop, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; New Orleans by Bernard Spragg, CC0.

Galway 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 Galway for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches
  • day trips

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

Choose New Orleans for

  • food and drink
  • nightlife
  • culture and sights

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. Galway 28, New Orleans 14: Galway leads by 14 points.
Food & drink. Galway 45, New Orleans 84: New Orleans leads by 39 points.
Culture & sights. Galway 33, New Orleans 67: New Orleans leads by 34 points.
Nightlife. Galway 50, New Orleans 85: New Orleans leads by 35 points.
Nature & outdoors. Galway 78, New Orleans 42: Galway leads by 36 points.
Day trips. Galway 56, New Orleans 52: Galway leads by 4 points.
Good for families. Galway 42, New Orleans 55: New Orleans leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Galway 58, New Orleans 55: Galway leads by 3 points.
Shopping & style. Galway 38, New Orleans 54: New Orleans leads by 16 points.
Affordability. Galway 28, New Orleans 40: New Orleans leads by 12 points.
Live music & performing arts. Galway 57, New Orleans 80: New Orleans leads by 23 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Galway 28, New Orleans 25: Galway leads by 3 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Galway and New Orleans.

Your match

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

Galway
45match

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

New Orleans
Best match
54match

Wins on food and drink and nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Galway in July

20 °Cdaytime high
13 °Cnight-time low
91 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
16 °Csea
16 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
GalwayNew Orleans

Where the figures come from

Galway's temperatures are measured 64 km from the centre, at Shannon Airport.

Galway 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.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Galway: 1991-2020 normals, Shannon Airport (64.2 km from centre). New Orleans: 1991-2020 normals, New Orleans Airport (2.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureGalwayNew Orleans
Official languageEnglish, Irish-
CurrencyEuro (EUR)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-6, UTC-5 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation25 m-2 m
Main airportShannon Airport (SNN)64 km from centre39 non-stop destinationsLouis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)18 km from centre51 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureGalwayNew Orleans
City population83,456383,997
People per km²1,563423
Museums within 10 km416
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Galway 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). 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.

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.