VacationSelector

Geneva or Monaco?

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

Geneva
50
match

Wins on nightlife and places to eat with your weighting.

Monaco
48
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and year-round weather 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 Geneva if you want a wider choice of restaurants, busier evenings, and more to keep children occupied on a trip where swimming is not part of the plan.

Choose Monaco if you want the sea and the milder winter days: 4 months warm enough to swim in, peaking at 25°C, and a compact centre you can cover on foot.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

GenevaMonaco
Beaches & swimming. Monaco leads by 73 points.73
GenevaMonaco
Score073
Swim season months04
Beaches 10 km4350
Coast distance279 km0 km
Water distance—0 km
Places to eat. Geneva leads by 31 points.31
GenevaMonaco
Score7039
Restaurants within 2 km of centre1,028269
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km3516
Museums & heritage. Geneva leads by 14 points.14
GenevaMonaco
Score5238
Museums within 10 km3523
Museums within 2 km of centre208
Share of museums within 2 km %5735
Unesco sites within 50 km22
Nightlife. Geneva leads by 42 points.42
GenevaMonaco
Score508
Drinking venues within 4 km54969
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre42763
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7891
Nightclubs within 4 km607
Nature & day trips. Geneva leads by 6 points.6
GenevaMonaco
Score5953
Protected land share 50 km %2724
Landscape blanket share 50 km %2117
Land share of disc %10054
Park area within 2 km182 hectares15 hectares
Good for families. Geneva leads by 30 points.30
GenevaMonaco
Score6535
Tourist attractions within 2 km2814
Park area within 2 km182 hectares15 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km23
Sights concentration. Monaco leads by 8 points.8
GenevaMonaco
Score5664
Notable places within 2 km99154
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for moneyNo source publishes a price level for Monaco.
Year-round weather. Monaco leads by 15 points.15
GenevaMonaco
Score5974
Monthly daytime high5.1 °C to 26.8 °C13.3 °C to 27.9 °C
Monthly rainfall55 mm to 94 mm13 mm to 138 mm
Dry months03
0255075100

Where they differ

Geneva has about three times as many restaurants near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens, plus many times as many places to drink and to dance, most of them central. It also has roughly twice as many museums, twice as many attractions near the centre, and far more park space.

Monaco puts 50 beaches within reach against Geneva's 43, with sea at 21°C or warmer for 4 months. Its centre is denser, with about twice as many notable places within walking distance, and 3 theme parks in range against 2.

Where they are alike

Both sit in fairly well protected surroundings, 27% of the land around Geneva and 24% around Monaco, so a day out of either leads into open country rather than more town.

Both centres are walkable, with their notable places clustered rather than spread out, and each has 2 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach. Neither is a heavyweight museum city, though Geneva holds about twice as many as Monaco.

Which traveller are you?

Families are better served in Geneva, with about twice as many attractions near the centre and far more park space, although Monaco counters with 3 theme parks in reach against Geneva's 2.

Anyone whose trip is built around swimming should take Monaco: 50 beaches nearby and sea at 21°C or more for 4 months, where Geneva offers no swimming season at all.

Travellers who plan their day around eating and staying out late belong in Geneva, which has roughly three times as many restaurants near the centre, a broader range of kitchens, and many times as many bars and clubs.

What the numbers don't tell you

No cost comparison is possible here. The data carries a daily budget for Geneva, at €248, and none at all for Monaco, so nothing on this page tells you how the two sit against each other on price. Read Geneva's figure on its own.

Monaco's beach and weather strengths point at the months everyone else picks: the 4 months of sea above 21°C are the busy ones, and the dry summer sits next to autumn rainfall above 120mm. Geneva's rain, by contrast, never really lets up, so its warmest months are warm rather than dry.

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.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Geneva
5
7
12
16
20
24
27
26
21
16
9
6
Monaco
13
14
15
17
21
25
28
28
25
21
17
14
Sea temperature, °C
Geneva
No coastline within reach
Monaco
14
13
14
15
18
21
24
25
22
20
17
15
Rainfall, mm
Geneva
71
55
61
66
77
81
77
80
87
94
87
88
Monaco
74
53
51
69
42
34
13
18
84
124
138
91
Daylight, hours per day
Geneva
9
10
12
14
15
16
15
14
13
11
10
9
Monaco
9
11
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Geneva
2
3
6
6
7
8
9
8
6
4
2
2
Monaco
5
6
7
7
9
10
11
11
8
6
5
5

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Geneva: 1991-2020 normals, Geneve-Cointrin (5.7 km from centre). Monaco: 1991-2020 normals, Nice (19.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Geneva is at its best from June to August, with highs of 24-27°C, though rainfall stays near 80mm right through summer and climbs above 90mm in autumn. Winter highs of 5-6°C make it an indoor trip.

Monaco peaks in July and August: highs of 28°C, sea at 24-25°C and rain down to 13-18mm. Autumn is the catch, with rainfall of 124-138mm. Winter highs near 13°C keep it walkable when Geneva is cold.

Getting there

Flying fromGenevaMonaco
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 35 m
€91-200
GVA · 5 km
1 h 55 m
€76-223
NCE · 18 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 10 m
€104-203
GVA · 5 km
1 h 30 m
€78-111
NCE · 18 km
LisbonLIS
2 h 25 m
€156-181
1 stop
GVA · 5 km
2 h 25 m
€153-221
1 stop
NCE · 18 km
BrusselsBRU, CRL
1 h 20 m
no fares
GVA · 5 km
1 h 40 m
€155-228
1 stop
NCE · 18 km
AmsterdamAMS
1 h 30 m
€160-186
GVA · 5 km
1 h 50 m
€170-248
NCE · 18 km
MadridMAD
1 h 50 m
no fares
GVA · 5 km
1 h 50 m
€137-165
NCE · 18 km
PortoOPO
2 h 10 m
€127-171
1 stop
GVA · 5 km
2 h 15 m
no fares
NCE · 18 km
RomeFCO, CIA
1 h 30 m
no fares
GVA · 5 km
1 h 10 m
€69-133
NCE · 18 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
8 h 0 m
no fares
GVA · 5 km
8 h 10 m
€666-799
1 stop
NCE · 18 km
TunisTUN
2 h 0 m
no fares
GVA · 5 km
1 h 35 m
€148-281
NCE · 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

MeasureGenevaMonaco
Official languageFrench, German, Italian, RomanshFrench
CurrencySwiss Franc (CHF)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCJ230 V, 50 HzCEF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation403 m68 m
Main airportGeneva International Airport (GVA)5 km from centre140 non-stop destinationsNice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)18 km from centre129 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureGenevaMonaco
City population209,06138,857
People per km²13,14818,503
Museums within 10 km3514
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km22
Distinct cuisines in the centre8029
Swim season, months above 21 °C–4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Geneva or Monaco somewhere new.

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.