VacationSelector
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
GlasgowKelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
Kek Lok Si temple on the hillside, Penang
PenangKek Lok Si temple on the hillside

Photos: Glasgow by Stinglehammer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Penang by Supanut Arunoprayote, CC BY 4.0, cropped.

Glasgow or Penang?

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

  • live music and the arts
  • day trips
  • nightlife

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

Choose Penang for

  • food and drink
  • prices
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Penang’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, Penang 44: Penang leads by 30 points.
Food & drink. Glasgow 52, Penang 86: Penang leads by 34 points.
Culture & sights. Glasgow 62, Penang 70: Penang leads by 8 points.
Nightlife. Glasgow 66, Penang 40: Glasgow leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Glasgow 75, Penang 55: Glasgow leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Glasgow 76, Penang 42: Glasgow leads by 34 points.
Good for families. Glasgow 58, Penang 52: Glasgow leads by 6 points.
Getting around. Glasgow 66, Penang 40: Glasgow leads by 26 points.
Shopping & style. Glasgow 64, Penang 42: Glasgow leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Glasgow 46, Penang 78: Penang leads by 32 points.
Live music & performing arts. Glasgow 72, Penang 30: Glasgow leads by 42 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Glasgow 28, Penang 42: Penang leads by 14 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Glasgow and Penang.

Your match

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

Glasgow
Best match
57match

Wins on live music and the arts and day trips with your weighting.

Penang
52match

Wins on food and drink and prices 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

Penang in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
189 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
12 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
GlasgowPenang

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). Penang: 1991-2020 normals, Penang / Bayan Lepas (14.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureGlasgowPenang
Official languageEnglishMalay
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Malaysian Ringgit (MYR)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzG240 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+8
Emergency number112 or 999999
Elevation21 m4 m
Main airportGlasgow Airport (GLA)11 km from centre95 non-stop destinationsPenang International Airport (PEN)14 km from centre32 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days-

By the numbers

MeasureGlasgowPenang
City population626,410794,313
People per km²190-
Museums within 10 km299
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

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