VacationSelector

Heidelberg or Reykjavik?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Heidelberg
45
match

Wins on year-round weather and value for money with your weighting.

Reykjavik
46
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and sights concentration with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

HeidelbergReykjavik
Beaches & swimming. Reykjavik leads by 60 points.60
HeidelbergReykjavik
Score060
Swim season months00
Beaches 10 km633
Coast distance406 km0 km
Water distance0 km
Places to eat. Reykjavik leads by 2 points.2
HeidelbergReykjavik
Score4749
Restaurants within 2 km of centre269261
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km2629
Museums & heritage. Heidelberg leads by 9 points.9
HeidelbergReykjavik
Score5950
Museums within 10 km5434
Museums within 2 km of centre2323
Share of museums within 2 km %4368
Unesco sites within 50 km41
Nightlife. Heidelberg and Reykjavik are level on 27.
HeidelbergReykjavik
Score2727
Drinking venues within 4 km201192
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre169166
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8486
Nightclubs within 4 km810
Nature & day trips. Heidelberg leads by 15 points.15
HeidelbergReykjavik
Score7459
Protected land share 50 km %5216
Landscape blanket share 50 km %220
Land share of disc %10056
Park area within 2 km20 hectares28 hectares
Good for families. Heidelberg leads by 1 points.1
HeidelbergReykjavik
Score4342
Tourist attractions within 2 km2921
Park area within 2 km20 hectares28 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km11
Sights concentration. Reykjavik leads by 12 points.12
HeidelbergReykjavik
Score3648
Notable places within 2 km3161
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Heidelberg leads by 19 points.19
HeidelbergReykjavik
Score6041
Price level global75.9102.8
Daily budget€163€243
Year-round weather. Heidelberg leads by 24 points.24
HeidelbergReykjavik
Score6137
Monthly daytime high5.2 °C to 25.8 °C3.2 °C to 14.9 °C
Monthly rainfall45 mm to 80 mm41 mm to 97 mm
Dry months00
0255075100

When should you go?

The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Heidelberg
5
7
12
17
21
24
26
26
21
15
9
6
Reykjavik
3
3
4
7
10
13
15
14
11
8
5
3
Sea temperature, °C
Heidelberg
No coastline within reach
Reykjavik
5
5
5
6
7
10
11
11
10
8
7
6
Rainfall, mm
Heidelberg
46
46
53
45
69
66
80
67
56
61
62
64
Reykjavik
86
87
84
56
49
41
50
66
87
80
86
97
Daylight, hours per day
Heidelberg
9
10
12
14
15
16
16
14
13
11
9
8
Reykjavik
6
9
12
15
18
21
20
16
13
10
7
4
Sunshine, hours per day
Heidelberg
2
3
4
6
7
7
8
7
6
4
2
1
Reykjavik
1
2
4
5
7
6
6
5
4
3
1
0

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Heidelberg: 1991-2020 normals, Heidelberg (4.5 km from centre). Reykjavik: 1991-2020 normals, Reykjavik (2.3 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromHeidelbergReykjavik
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 25 m
€74-124
FRA · 69 km
2 h 55 m
€245-283
1 stop
KEF · 37 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
7 h 55 m
€537-713
FRA · 69 km
5 h 35 m
€389-592
KEF · 37 km
CopenhagenCPH
1 h 30 m
€173-202
1 stop
FRA · 69 km
3 h 10 m
€216-282
1 stop
KEF · 37 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 10 m
€139-148
FRA · 69 km
3 h 20 m
€247-346
1 stop
KEF · 37 km
AmsterdamAMS
1 h 5 m
€221-263
1 stop
FRA · 69 km
3 h 5 m
€293-407
2 stops
KEF · 37 km
BerlinBER
1 h 10 m
€157-188
FRA · 69 km
3 h 30 m
€245-365
1 stop
KEF · 37 km
TorontoYYZ, YHM, YTZ
8 h 10 m
€628-668
FRA · 69 km
5 h 35 m
€426-480
KEF · 37 km
OsloOSL, TRF
2 h 0 m
€184-221
2 stops
FRA · 69 km
2 h 45 m
no fares
KEF · 37 km
MunichMUC
1 h 0 m
no fares
FRA · 69 km
3 h 50 m
€275-453
1 stop
KEF · 37 km
BeijingPEK, PKX
9 h 50 m
€683-756
FRA · 69 km
10 h 0 m
no fares
KEF · 37 km

The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-09 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.

Before you go

MeasureHeidelbergReykjavik
Official languageGermanIcelandic
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Iceland Krona (ISK)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC
Emergency number112112
Elevation114 m8 m
Main airportFrankfurt Main Airport (FRA)69 km from centre293 non-stop destinationsKeflavik International Airport (KEF)37 km from centre88 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureHeidelbergReykjavik
City population162,960138,772
People per km²1,496569
Museums within 10 km1723
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km41
Distinct cuisines in the centre4542
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Heidelberg or Reykjavik somewhere new.

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.