VacationSelector
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
GlasgowKelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
The Ferris wheel on Santa Monica Pier, Los Angeles
Los AngelesThe Ferris wheel on Santa Monica Pier

Photos: Glasgow by Stinglehammer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Los Angeles by Domenico Convertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Glasgow or Los Angeles?

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 Glasgow for

  • getting around
  • prices
  • day trips

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

Choose Los Angeles for

  • beaches
  • food and drink
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Los Angeles’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. Glasgow 14, Los Angeles 60: Los Angeles leads by 46 points.
Food & drink. Glasgow 52, Los Angeles 84: Los Angeles leads by 32 points.
Culture & sights. Glasgow 62, Los Angeles 66: Los Angeles leads by 4 points.
Nightlife. Glasgow 66, Los Angeles 67: Los Angeles leads by 1 points.
Nature & outdoors. Glasgow 75, Los Angeles 80: Los Angeles leads by 5 points.
Day trips. Glasgow 76, Los Angeles 60: Glasgow leads by 16 points.
Good for families. Glasgow 58, Los Angeles 84: Los Angeles leads by 26 points.
Getting around. Glasgow 66, Los Angeles 25: Glasgow leads by 41 points.
Shopping & style. Glasgow 64, Los Angeles 80: Los Angeles leads by 16 points.
Affordability. Glasgow 46, Los Angeles 24: Glasgow leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. Glasgow 72, Los Angeles 83: Los Angeles leads by 11 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Glasgow 28, Los Angeles 60: Los Angeles leads by 32 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Glasgow and Los Angeles.

Your match

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

Glasgow
57match

Wins on getting around and prices with your weighting.

Los Angeles
Best match
64match

Wins on beaches and food and drink with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Glasgow in July

19 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
85 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
15 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

Los Angeles in July

24 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°5°10°15°20°25°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
GlasgowLos Angeles

Where the figures come from

Glasgow 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.

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). Los Angeles: 1991-2020 normals, Los Angeles Airport (18.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureGlasgowLos Angeles
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation21 m106 m
Main airportGlasgow Airport (GLA)11 km from centre95 non-stop destinationsLos Angeles International Airport (LAX)19 km from centre177 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureGlasgowLos Angeles
City population626,4103,898,747
People per km²1902,994
Museums within 10 km2939
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Swim season, months above 21 °CNoneNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Glasgow or Los Angeles 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. 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). 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.

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.