VacationSelector

Glasgow or Kathmandu?

Two destinations compared in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
Glasgow

Photo: Stinglehammer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped

Swayambhunath with its prayer flags, Kathmandu
Kathmandu

Photo: Nabin K. Sapkota, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped

Your match

Glasgow
✓ Best match
57
match

Wins on live music and the arts and getting around with your weighting.

Kathmandu
48
match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

Scoreboard

Our verdict on each category, scored 0 to 100 against fixed benchmark cities.

GlasgowKathmandu
Beaches & swimming. Glasgow leads by 10 points.10
Food & drink. Kathmandu leads by 3 points.3
Culture & sights. Kathmandu leads by 20 points.20
Nightlife. Glasgow leads by 30 points.30
Nature & outdoors. Glasgow leads by 5 points.5
Day trips. Glasgow leads by 20 points.20
Good for families. Glasgow leads by 38 points.38
Getting around. Glasgow leads by 41 points.41
Shopping & style. Glasgow leads by 9 points.9
Affordability. Kathmandu leads by 51 points.51
Live music & performing arts. Glasgow leads by 44 points.44
Wellness & relaxation. Kathmandu leads by 17 points.17
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Glasgow and Kathmandu.

When should you go?

Pick the month you can travel and see both cities side by side. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Climate figures for July
JulyGlasgowKathmandu
Daytime high19 °C29 °C
Night-time low11 °C20 °C
Rainfall in the month129 mm384 mm
Sunshine4 hours a day4 hours a day
Sea temperature15 °CNo sea
Daylight17 hours a day14 hours a day

The whole year

Each row is shaded against that destination’s own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that figure 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
Glasgow
7
7
9
12
15
18
19
19
16
13
9
7
Kathmandu
19
22
26
29
29
29
29
29
28
27
23
20
Sea temperature, °C
Glasgow
8
7
7
8
10
13
15
15
14
12
11
9
Kathmandu
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Glasgow
207
170
147
102
103
111
129
145
132
185
190
205
Kathmandu
16
23
37
57
113
260
384
317
211
48
7
10
Daylight, hours per day
Glasgow
8
10
12
14
16
18
17
15
13
11
8
7
Kathmandu
11
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
12
11
10
Sunshine, hours per day
Glasgow
1
2
3
4
5
4
4
4
3
2
2
1
Kathmandu
6
6
7
7
7
5
4
4
5
7
7
7

Where the figures come from

Glasgow's rainfall is measured 90 km from the centre, at Eskdalemuir.

Glasgow's sunshine is measured 90 km from the centre, at Eskdalemuir.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Glasgow: 1991-2020 normals, Glasgow Airport (11.5 km from centre). Kathmandu: 1991-2020 normals, Kathmandu Airport (4.7 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromGlasgowKathmandu
DubaiDXB, DWC
7 h 30 m
no fares
GLA · 11 km
4 h 10 m
€400-446
KTM · 4 km
DohaDOH
7 h 10 m
no fares
EDI · 56 km
4 h 35 m
€459-552
KTM · 4 km
BeijingPEK, PKX
10 h 0 m
no fares
EDI · 56 km
4 h 25 m
€450-780
1 stop
KTM · 4 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
4 h 0 m
€201-242
1 stop
EDI · 56 km
6 h 55 m
€583-665
1 stop
KTM · 4 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 2026-10 to 2026-12, 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

MeasureGlasgowKathmandu
Official languageEnglishNepali
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Nepalese Rupee (NPR)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzCM230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+5:45
Emergency number112 or 999Police 100, ambulance 102, fire 101
Elevation21 m1,300 m
Main airportGlasgow Airport (GLA)11 km from centre95 non-stop destinationsTribhuvan International Airport (KTM)4 km from centre38 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days-

By the numbers

MeasureGlasgowKathmandu
City population626,410845,767
People per km²19017,121
Museums within 10 km299
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone-

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination

Sources

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). 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. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate and flight figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-27. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.