VacationSelector

Ghent or Stuttgart?

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, 1 point apart

Ghent
50
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and places to eat with your weighting.

Stuttgart
51
match

Wins on nature & day trips 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 Ghent if you want a compact trip: the wider range of kitchens, with museums and attractions grouped close to the centre, and 8 beaches within reach if the weather cooperates.

Choose Stuttgart if you would rather get out of town. Roughly half the surrounding land is protected, and the summer runs warmer, reaching 26°C, with drier winters behind it.

Scoreboard

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

GhentStuttgart
Beaches & swimming. Ghent leads by 26 points.26
GhentStuttgart
Score260
Swim season months00
Beaches 10 km83
Coast distance32 km476 km
Water distance32 km—
Places to eat. Ghent leads by 11 points.11
GhentStuttgart
Score7059
Restaurants within 2 km of centre764575
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km4929
Museums & heritage. Ghent leads by 2 points.2
GhentStuttgart
Score5856
Museums within 10 km2465
Museums within 2 km of centre2021
Share of museums within 2 km %8332
Unesco sites within 50 km53
Nightlife. Ghent and Stuttgart are level on 49.
GhentStuttgart
Score4949
Drinking venues within 4 km570524
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre446374
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7871
Nightclubs within 4 km2653
Nature & day trips. Stuttgart leads by 46 points.46
GhentStuttgart
Score3480
Protected land share 50 km %751
Landscape blanket share 50 km %431
Land share of disc %87100
Park area within 2 km84 hectares78 hectares
Good for families. Ghent leads by 5 points.5
GhentStuttgart
Score5045
Tourist attractions within 2 km1911
Park area within 2 km84 hectares78 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km12
Sights concentration. Ghent leads by 2 points.2
GhentStuttgart
Score4644
Notable places within 2 km5550
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Ghent and Stuttgart are level on 60.
GhentStuttgart
Score6060
Price level global76.275.9
Daily budget€180€163
Year-round weather. Stuttgart leads by 7 points.7
GhentStuttgart
Score5663
Monthly daytime high6.4 °C to 22 °C5.6 °C to 25.9 °C
Monthly rainfall35 mm to 79 mm33 mm to 79 mm
Dry months13
0255075100

Where they differ

Ghent has somewhat more restaurants near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens, so it is the stronger base for eating out. It also has 8 beaches nearby against Stuttgart's 3, though the sea peaks at 19°C in August, so swimming is incidental rather than a reason to go.

Stuttgart is the better base for days out: 51% of the land around it is protected against 7% around Ghent, which puts far more open country within reach. Park space near the centre is similar in both.

Where they are alike

Nightlife works much the same way in both. Each has a similar number of places to drink, and in both they sit close to the centre, so an evening out needs no transport.

They are also close on heritage, walkable sights and families. Each has a similar number of notable places within walking distance of the centre, and similar park space. Stuttgart has more museums; Ghent's are more tightly grouped, and it has 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against 3.

Which traveller are you?

Someone building a trip around eating and evenings out should take Ghent: more restaurants near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens, with a drinking scene comparable to Stuttgart's and equally central.

Anyone who wants countryside within a day's travel should take Stuttgart, where 51% of the surrounding land is protected against 7% around Ghent. It also has the larger stock of museums for wet days.

Families are better served in Ghent, with about twice as many attractions near the centre and comparable park space, plus 8 beaches nearby. Stuttgart counters with 2 theme parks within reach against Ghent's 1.

What the numbers don't tell you

Ghent's beaches are about proximity, not swimming: the sea peaks at 19°C in August, which is also its wettest month. Stuttgart's strength in nature rests on protected land around the city, which means a car or a train rather than a walk from the centre.

The daily budget figures, €180 for Belgium and €163 for Germany, are national estimates of restaurant and hotel price levels, not measurements of Ghent or Stuttgart. A single city can sit further from its own national average than these two countries sit from each other, so neither is shown here to be the cheaper trip.

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
Ghent
6
7
10
13
17
20
22
22
19
15
10
7
Stuttgart
6
7
12
16
21
24
26
26
21
16
10
6
Sea temperature, °C
Ghent
6
6
6
9
12
16
18
19
18
15
11
8
Stuttgart
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Ghent
59
52
44
35
51
64
74
79
72
76
78
74
Stuttgart
35
33
43
37
72
77
79
63
49
55
50
50
Daylight, hours per day
Ghent
9
10
12
14
16
17
16
15
13
11
9
8
Stuttgart
9
10
12
14
15
16
16
14
13
11
9
8
Sunshine, hours per day
Ghent
3
3
5
7
8
8
8
7
6
4
3
2
Stuttgart
2
3
5
6
7
7
8
7
6
4
2
2

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Ghent: 1991-2020 normals, Vlissingen (44.9 km from centre). Stuttgart: 1991-2020 normals, Stuttgart / Neckartal (2.8 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Ghent is at its best in July and August at 22°C, though those are also its wettest months, near 79mm. Spring is the drier half of its year, with 35mm in April. Autumn and early winter stay wet and cool.

Stuttgart runs warmer over the same summer, reaching 26°C, and holds up better either side: May and September both sit at 21°C, with September down to 49mm, well below Ghent's rain that month. Its winter months are drier as well.

Getting there

Flying fromGhentStuttgart
IstanbulIST, SAW
3 h 10 m
€161-193
BRU · 56 km
2 h 40 m
€139-291
STR · 10 km
BarcelonaBCN
1 h 55 m
€47-116
BRU · 56 km
1 h 50 m
€111-165
STR · 10 km
AntalyaAYT
3 h 45 m
€179-232
1 stop
BRU · 56 km
3 h 15 m
€194-322
1 stop
STR · 10 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 5 m
€98-165
1 stop
BRU · 56 km
1 h 35 m
no fares
STR · 10 km
SingaporeSIN, XSP
13 h 5 m
no fares
BRU · 56 km
12 h 45 m
no fares
FRA · 146 km
PalmaPMI
2 h 10 m
no fares
BRU · 56 km
2 h 0 m
no fares
STR · 10 km
MadridMAD
2 h 15 m
€98-170
BRU · 56 km
2 h 20 m
€145-238
1 stop
FRA · 146 km
Sao PauloGRU, VCP, CGH, RTE
12 h 0 m
no fares
BRU · 56 km
12 h 10 m
no fares
FRA · 146 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
7 h 35 m
no fares
BRU · 56 km
7 h 55 m
€537-713
FRA · 146 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
6 h 45 m
no fares
BRU · 56 km
6 h 20 m
€296-339
1 stop
FRA · 146 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

MeasureGhentStuttgart
Official languageFrench, German, DutchGerman
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation12 m245 m
Main airportBrussels Airport (BRU)56 km from centre191 non-stop destinationsStuttgart Airport (STR)10 km from centre121 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureGhentStuttgart
City population272,657633,484
People per km²1,7283,054
Museums within 10 km3042
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km53
Distinct cuisines in the centre8359
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone–

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Ghent or Stuttgart 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. 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. 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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.