VacationSelector
White sand and the turquoise Gulf of Mexico, Gulf Shores
Gulf ShoresWhite sand and the turquoise Gulf of Mexico
The floating torii of Itsukushima at Miyajima, Hiroshima
HiroshimaThe floating torii of Itsukushima at Miyajima

Photos: Gulf Shores by ourgulfshoresvacation.com, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Hiroshima by Guohua Song, Pexels License.

Gulf Shores or Hiroshima?

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 Gulf Shores for

  • beaches
  • families

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

Choose Hiroshima for

  • getting around
  • culture and sights
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Hiroshima’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. Gulf Shores 84, Hiroshima 30: Gulf Shores leads by 54 points.
Food & drink. Gulf Shores 38, Hiroshima 66: Hiroshima leads by 28 points.
Culture & sights. Gulf Shores 12, Hiroshima 60: Hiroshima leads by 48 points.
Nightlife. Gulf Shores 32, Hiroshima 45: Hiroshima leads by 13 points.
Nature & outdoors. Gulf Shores 52, Hiroshima 62: Hiroshima leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Gulf Shores 52, Hiroshima 80: Hiroshima leads by 28 points.
Good for families. Gulf Shores 75, Hiroshima 60: Gulf Shores leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Gulf Shores 15, Hiroshima 74: Hiroshima leads by 59 points.
Shopping & style. Gulf Shores 22, Hiroshima 52: Hiroshima leads by 30 points.
Affordability. Gulf Shores 42, Hiroshima 58: Hiroshima leads by 16 points.
Live music & performing arts. Gulf Shores 27, Hiroshima 38: Hiroshima leads by 11 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Gulf Shores 28, Hiroshima 50: Hiroshima leads by 22 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Gulf Shores and Hiroshima.

Your match

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

Gulf Shores
40match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Hiroshima
Best match
56match

Wins on getting around and culture and sights with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Gulf Shores in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
165 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Hiroshima in July

31 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
299 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
24 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Gulf ShoresHiroshima

Where the figures come from

Gulf Shores 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.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Gulf Shores: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Gulf Shores / Bay Village Mobile Home Park (3.7 km from centre). Hiroshima: 1991-2020 normals, Hiroshima (1.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureGulf ShoresHiroshima
Official language-Japanese
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Yen (JPY)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6, UTC-5 in summerUTC+9
Emergency number911Police 110, fire 119
Elevation2 m3 m
Main airportPensacola International Airport (PNS)54 km from centre27 non-stop destinationsHiroshima Airport (HIJ)43 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureGulf ShoresHiroshima
City population15,0141,198,021
People per km²2071,324
Museums within 10 km118
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
Swim season, months above 21 °C8 months4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Gulf Shores or Hiroshima somewhere new.

Browse every destination

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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.