VacationSelector
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
GlasgowKelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
The red cable car above Wellington, Wellington
WellingtonThe red cable car above Wellington

Photos: Glasgow by Stinglehammer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Wellington by lumoplank, CC0.

Glasgow or Wellington?

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
  • shopping
  • nightlife

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

Choose Wellington for

  • beaches
  • food and drink
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Wellington’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, Wellington 33: Wellington leads by 19 points.
Food & drink. Glasgow 52, Wellington 62: Wellington leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Glasgow 62, Wellington 44: Glasgow leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. Glasgow 66, Wellington 45: Glasgow leads by 21 points.
Nature & outdoors. Glasgow 75, Wellington 78: Wellington leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Glasgow 76, Wellington 40: Glasgow leads by 36 points.
Good for families. Glasgow 58, Wellington 62: Wellington leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Glasgow 66, Wellington 68: Wellington leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Glasgow 64, Wellington 42: Glasgow leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Glasgow 46, Wellington 33: Glasgow leads by 13 points.
Live music & performing arts. Glasgow 72, Wellington 56: Glasgow leads by 16 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Glasgow 28, Wellington 30: Wellington leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Glasgow and Wellington.

Your match

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

Glasgow
Best match
57match

Wins on day trips and shopping with your weighting.

Wellington
49match

Wins on beaches and food and drink 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

Wellington in July

12 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
111 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
12 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°5°10°15°20°25°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
GlasgowWellington

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.

Wellington's sunshine is measured 47 km from the centre, at Paraparaumu Aerodrome.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Glasgow: 1991-2020 normals, Glasgow Airport (11.5 km from centre). Wellington: 1961-1990 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Wellington Aerodrome Aws (5.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureGlasgowWellington
Official languageEnglishEnglish, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999111
Elevation21 m0 m
Main airportGlasgow Airport (GLA)11 km from centre95 non-stop destinationsWellington International Airport (WLG)5 km from centre20 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureGlasgowWellington
City population626,410216,200
People per km²190487
Museums within 10 km2912
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 Wellington 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.