VacationSelector
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
GlasgowKelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
Hawthorne Bridge and downtown, Portland
PortlandHawthorne Bridge and downtown

Photos: Glasgow by Stinglehammer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Portland by Cacophony, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Glasgow or Portland?

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

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Portland for

  • food and drink
  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Portland’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, Portland 20: Portland leads by 6 points.
Food & drink. Glasgow 52, Portland 68: Portland leads by 16 points.
Culture & sights. Glasgow 62, Portland 38: Glasgow leads by 24 points.
Nightlife. Glasgow 66, Portland 52: Glasgow leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. Glasgow 75, Portland 84: Portland leads by 9 points.
Day trips. Glasgow 76, Portland 58: Glasgow leads by 18 points.
Good for families. Glasgow 58, Portland 55: Glasgow leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Glasgow 66, Portland 62: Glasgow leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Glasgow 64, Portland 52: Glasgow leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Glasgow 46, Portland 38: Glasgow leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Glasgow 72, Portland 55: Glasgow leads by 17 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Glasgow 28, Portland 42: Portland leads by 14 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Glasgow
Best match
57match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips with your weighting.

Portland
52match

Wins on food and drink 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

Portland in July

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

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
GlasgowPortland

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). Portland: 1991-2020 normals, Portland International Airport (9.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureGlasgowPortland
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 m152 m
Main airportGlasgow Airport (GLA)11 km from centre95 non-stop destinationsPortland International Airport (PDX)10 km from centre88 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureGlasgowPortland
City population626,410652,503
People per km²1901,736
Museums within 10 km2917
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
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 Portland 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.