VacationSelector
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
GlasgowKelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
Parliament Hill across the Ottawa River, Ottawa
OttawaParliament Hill across the Ottawa River

Photos: Glasgow by Stinglehammer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Ottawa by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Glasgow or Ottawa?

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

  • nightlife
  • shopping
  • day trips

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

Choose Ottawa for

  • wellness
  • beaches
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Ottawa’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, Ottawa 35: Ottawa leads by 21 points.
Food & drink. Glasgow 52, Ottawa 45: Glasgow leads by 7 points.
Culture & sights. Glasgow and Ottawa are level on 62.
Nightlife. Glasgow 66, Ottawa 35: Glasgow leads by 31 points.
Nature & outdoors. Glasgow 75, Ottawa 68: Glasgow leads by 7 points.
Day trips. Glasgow 76, Ottawa 55: Glasgow leads by 21 points.
Good for families. Glasgow 58, Ottawa 68: Ottawa leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Glasgow 66, Ottawa 62: Glasgow leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Glasgow 64, Ottawa 40: Glasgow leads by 24 points.
Affordability. Glasgow 46, Ottawa 40: Glasgow leads by 6 points.
Live music & performing arts. Glasgow 72, Ottawa 52: Glasgow leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Glasgow 28, Ottawa 55: Ottawa leads by 27 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Glasgow and Ottawa.

Your match

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

Glasgow
Best match
57match

Wins on nightlife and shopping with your weighting.

Ottawa
51match

Wins on wellness and beaches 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

Ottawa in July

27 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
82 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
GlasgowOttawa

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). Ottawa: 1991-2020 normals, Ottawa CDA RCS (5.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureGlasgowOttawa
Official languageEnglishFrench, English
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Canadian Dollar (CAD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation21 m70 m
Main airportGlasgow Airport (GLA)11 km from centre95 non-stop destinationsOttawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport (YOW)12 km from centre46 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureGlasgowOttawa
City population626,4101,017,449
People per km²190366
Museums within 10 km2920
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 Ottawa 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.