VacationSelector
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
GlasgowKelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
The Winchester Mystery House, San Jose
San JoseThe Winchester Mystery House

Photos: Glasgow by Stinglehammer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; San Jose by Roxanna Salceda, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Glasgow or San Jose?

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

  • getting around
  • live music and the arts
  • nightlife

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

Choose San Jose for

  • beaches
  • families
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on San Jose’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, San Jose 30: San Jose leads by 16 points.
Food & drink. Glasgow 52, San Jose 56: San Jose leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Glasgow 62, San Jose 36: Glasgow leads by 26 points.
Nightlife. Glasgow 66, San Jose 33: Glasgow leads by 33 points.
Nature & outdoors. Glasgow 75, San Jose 72: Glasgow leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Glasgow 76, San Jose 78: San Jose leads by 2 points.
Good for families. Glasgow 58, San Jose 65: San Jose leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Glasgow 66, San Jose 30: Glasgow leads by 36 points.
Shopping & style. Glasgow 64, San Jose 48: Glasgow leads by 16 points.
Affordability. Glasgow 46, San Jose 20: Glasgow leads by 26 points.
Live music & performing arts. Glasgow 72, San Jose 38: Glasgow leads by 34 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Glasgow 28, San Jose 30: San Jose leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Glasgow and San Jose.

Your match

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

Glasgow
Best match
57match

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

San Jose
45match

Wins on beaches and families 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

San Jose in July

27 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
14 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
GlasgowSan Jose

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). San Jose: 1991-2020 normals, San Jose / Santa Clara Trailer Village (8.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureGlasgowSan Jose
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 m25 m
Main airportGlasgow Airport (GLA)11 km from centre95 non-stop destinationsMineta San Jose International Airport (SJC)8 km from centre38 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureGlasgowSan Jose
City population626,4101,013,240
People per km²1902,167
Museums within 10 km2919
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °CNoneNone

Where else could you go?

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