VacationSelector
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
GlasgowKelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
The Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket, Phuket
PhuketThe Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket

Photos: Glasgow by Stinglehammer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Phuket by Mussi Katz, CC0.

Glasgow or Phuket?

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
  • getting around
  • day trips

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

Choose Phuket for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Phuket’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, Phuket 90: Phuket leads by 76 points.
Food & drink. Glasgow 52, Phuket 66: Phuket leads by 14 points.
Culture & sights. Glasgow 62, Phuket 35: Glasgow leads by 27 points.
Nightlife. Glasgow 66, Phuket 72: Phuket leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Glasgow 75, Phuket 80: Phuket leads by 5 points.
Day trips. Glasgow 76, Phuket 45: Glasgow leads by 31 points.
Good for families. Glasgow 58, Phuket 65: Phuket leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Glasgow 66, Phuket 22: Glasgow leads by 44 points.
Shopping & style. Glasgow 64, Phuket 42: Glasgow leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Glasgow 46, Phuket 68: Phuket leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. Glasgow 72, Phuket 20: Glasgow leads by 52 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Glasgow 28, Phuket 82: Phuket leads by 54 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Glasgow
57match

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

Phuket
57match

Wins on beaches and wellness 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

Phuket in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
287 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
GlasgowPhuket

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.

Phuket's temperatures are measured 27 km from the centre, at Phuket Airport.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Glasgow: 1991-2020 normals, Glasgow Airport (11.5 km from centre). Phuket: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1961-1990) normals, Phuket Airport (26.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureGlasgowPhuket
Official languageEnglishThai
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Baht (THB)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+7
Emergency number112 or 999Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation21 m19 m
Main airportGlasgow Airport (GLA)11 km from centre95 non-stop destinationsPhuket International Airport (HKT)27 km from centre85 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days-

By the numbers

MeasureGlasgowPhuket
City population626,41077,610
People per km²1906,468
Museums within 10 km292
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
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 Phuket 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.