VacationSelector
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
GlasgowKelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
The Opera House from the water, Sydney
SydneyThe Opera House from the water

Photos: Glasgow by Stinglehammer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Sydney by Bernard Spragg, CC0.

Glasgow or Sydney?

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
  • prices
  • nightlife

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

Choose Sydney for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Sydney’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, Sydney 95: Sydney leads by 81 points.
Food & drink. Glasgow 52, Sydney 77: Sydney leads by 25 points.
Culture & sights. Glasgow 62, Sydney 60: Glasgow leads by 2 points.
Nightlife. Glasgow 66, Sydney 60: Glasgow leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Glasgow 75, Sydney 85: Sydney leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Glasgow 76, Sydney 50: Glasgow leads by 26 points.
Good for families. Glasgow 58, Sydney 75: Sydney leads by 17 points.
Getting around. Glasgow 66, Sydney 75: Sydney leads by 9 points.
Shopping & style. Glasgow 64, Sydney 68: Sydney leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Glasgow 46, Sydney 22: Glasgow leads by 24 points.
Live music & performing arts. Glasgow 72, Sydney 73: Sydney leads by 1 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Glasgow 28, Sydney 55: Sydney leads by 27 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Glasgow and Sydney.

Your match

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

Glasgow
57match

Wins on day trips and prices with your weighting.

Sydney
Best match
66match

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

Sydney in July

18 °Cdaytime high
9 °Cnight-time low
70 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
19 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
GlasgowSydney

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). Sydney: 1991-2020 normals, Sydney Airport (3.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureGlasgowSydney
Official languageEnglishEnglish
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Australian Dollar (AUD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+10, UTC+11 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999000
Elevation21 m6 m
Main airportGlasgow Airport (GLA)11 km from centre95 non-stop destinationsSydney Kingsford Smith International Airport (SYD)9 km from centre99 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureGlasgowSydney
City population626,4105,450,496
People per km²190449
Museums within 10 km2938
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km22
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone6 months

Where else could you go?

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