VacationSelector
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
GlasgowKelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
Sugarloaf Mountain above the boats in Botafogo Bay, Rio de Janeiro
Rio de JaneiroSugarloaf Mountain above the boats in Botafogo Bay

Photos: Glasgow by Stinglehammer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Rio de Janeiro by Arne Müseler, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, cropped.

Glasgow or Rio de Janeiro?

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

  • day trips
  • getting around
  • shopping

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

Choose Rio de Janeiro for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Rio de Janeiro’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, Rio de Janeiro 92: Rio de Janeiro leads by 78 points.
Food & drink. Glasgow 52, Rio de Janeiro 62: Rio de Janeiro leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Glasgow 62, Rio de Janeiro 68: Rio de Janeiro leads by 6 points.
Nightlife. Glasgow 66, Rio de Janeiro 80: Rio de Janeiro leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. Glasgow 75, Rio de Janeiro 90: Rio de Janeiro leads by 15 points.
Day trips. Glasgow 76, Rio de Janeiro 50: Glasgow leads by 26 points.
Good for families. Glasgow 58, Rio de Janeiro 50: Glasgow leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Glasgow 66, Rio de Janeiro 44: Glasgow leads by 22 points.
Shopping & style. Glasgow 64, Rio de Janeiro 50: Glasgow leads by 14 points.
Affordability. Glasgow 46, Rio de Janeiro 60: Rio de Janeiro leads by 14 points.
Live music & performing arts. Glasgow 72, Rio de Janeiro 66: Glasgow leads by 6 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Glasgow 28, Rio de Janeiro 30: Rio de Janeiro leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Glasgow and Rio de Janeiro.

Your match

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

Glasgow
57match

Wins on day trips and getting around with your weighting.

Rio de Janeiro
Best match
62match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors 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

Rio de Janeiro in July

24 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
45 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
22 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
GlasgowRio de Janeiro

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.

Rio de Janeiro has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Glasgow: 1991-2020 normals, Glasgow Airport (11.5 km from centre). Rio de Janeiro: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureGlasgowRio de Janeiro
Official languageEnglishPortuguese
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Brazilian Real (BRL)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzCN60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-3
Emergency number112 or 999Police 190, ambulance 192, fire 193
Elevation21 m31 m
Main airportGlasgow Airport (GLA)11 km from centre95 non-stop destinationsRio de Janeiro Galeão – Tom Jobim International Airport (GIG)12 km from centre54 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureGlasgowRio de Janeiro
City population626,4106,211,223
People per km²1904,930
Museums within 10 km2969
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km23
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 Rio de Janeiro 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.