VacationSelector
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
GlasgowKelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
La Major cathedral from the harbour, Marseille
MarseilleLa Major cathedral from the harbour

Photos: Glasgow by Stinglehammer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Marseille by Charlotte Noblet, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Glasgow or Marseille?

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

  • shopping
  • live music and the arts
  • nightlife

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

Choose Marseille for

  • beaches
  • food and drink
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Marseille’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, Marseille 72: Marseille leads by 58 points.
Food & drink. Glasgow 52, Marseille 67: Marseille leads by 15 points.
Culture & sights. Glasgow 62, Marseille 63: Marseille leads by 1 points.
Nightlife. Glasgow 66, Marseille 57: Glasgow leads by 9 points.
Nature & outdoors. Glasgow 75, Marseille 83: Marseille leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Glasgow 76, Marseille 86: Marseille leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Glasgow 58, Marseille 50: Glasgow leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Glasgow 66, Marseille 57: Glasgow leads by 9 points.
Shopping & style. Glasgow 64, Marseille 47: Glasgow leads by 17 points.
Affordability. Glasgow 46, Marseille 45: Glasgow leads by 1 points.
Live music & performing arts. Glasgow 72, Marseille 56: Glasgow leads by 16 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Glasgow 28, Marseille 37: Marseille leads by 9 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Glasgow and Marseille.

Your match

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

Glasgow
57match

Wins on shopping and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Marseille
Best match
60match

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

Marseille in July

31 °Cdaytime high
20 °Cnight-time low
11 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
21 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
GlasgowMarseille

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). Marseille: 1991-2020 normals, Marseille / Marignane (20.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureGlasgowMarseille
Official languageEnglishFrench
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Euro (EUR)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzCE230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999112
Elevation21 m0 m
Main airportGlasgow Airport (GLA)11 km from centre95 non-stop destinationsMarseille Provence Airport (MRS)21 km from centre126 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureGlasgowMarseille
City population626,410886,040
People per km²1903,683
Museums within 10 km2927
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone2 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Glasgow or Marseille 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.