VacationSelector

Helsinki or La Spezia?

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

Your match

Helsinki
✓ Best match
57
match

Wins on sights concentration and places to eat with your weighting.

La Spezia
43
match

Wins on year-round weather and beaches & swimming 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.

HelsinkiLa Spezia
Beaches & swimming. La Spezia leads by 13 points.13
HelsinkiLa Spezia
Score6073
Swim season months04
Beaches 10 km15732
Coast distance0 km0 km
Water distance0 km0 km
Places to eat. Helsinki leads by 40 points.40
HelsinkiLa Spezia
Score7131
Restaurants within 2 km of centre1,005235
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km3811
Museums & heritage. Helsinki leads by 7 points.7
HelsinkiLa Spezia
Score4942
Museums within 10 km5715
Museums within 2 km of centre2310
Share of museums within 2 km %4067
Unesco sites within 50 km12
Nightlife. Helsinki leads by 32 points.32
HelsinkiLa Spezia
Score5624
Drinking venues within 4 km807208
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre607176
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7585
Nightclubs within 4 km401
Nature & day trips. La Spezia leads by 10 points.10
HelsinkiLa Spezia
Score4252
Protected land share 50 km %313
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %5351
Park area within 2 km185 hectares23 hectares
Good for families. Helsinki leads by 38 points.38
HelsinkiLa Spezia
Score5820
Tourist attractions within 2 km203
Park area within 2 km185 hectares23 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km12
Sights concentration. Helsinki leads by 66 points.66
HelsinkiLa Spezia
Score737
Notable places within 2 km2576
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. La Spezia leads by 12 points.12
HelsinkiLa Spezia
Score5668
Price level global81.664.9
Daily budget€184€155
Year-round weather. La Spezia leads by 22 points.22
HelsinkiLa Spezia
Score4870
Monthly daytime high-1.5 °C to 21.9 °C11.4 °C to 30.3 °C
Monthly rainfall32 mm to 84 mm32 mm to 132 mm
Dry months32
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
Helsinki
-1
-1
2
8
15
19
22
21
15
9
4
1
La Spezia
11
13
16
18
23
27
30
30
26
21
16
12
Sea temperature, °C
Helsinki
2
1
1
2
6
11
16
17
14
10
7
4
La Spezia
14
13
14
15
18
22
24
25
23
20
18
16
Rainfall, mm
Helsinki
54
38
35
32
41
56
58
84
55
75
70
59
La Spezia
68
58
59
65
63
41
32
35
102
125
132
95
Daylight, hours per day
Helsinki
7
9
12
15
17
19
18
16
13
10
8
6
La Spezia
9
10
12
13
15
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Helsinki
1
2
5
7
9
9
9
8
5
3
1
1
La Spezia
4
4
6
6
8
9
11
10
7
5
4
3

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Helsinki: 1991-2020 normals, Helsinki Kaisaniemi / Harju (1.6 km from centre). La Spezia: 1991-2020 normals, Pisa / S. Giusto (64.8 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromHelsinkiLa Spezia
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
2 h 50 m
€112-224
HEL · 16 km
2 h 5 m
€48-62
PSA · 65 km
StockholmARN, BMA, NYO, VST
1 h 10 m
€62-63
HEL · 16 km
2 h 50 m
€120-185
1 stop
PSA · 65 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
2 h 55 m
€187-219
1 stop
HEL · 16 km
1 h 40 m
no fares
PSA · 65 km
TiranaTIA
3 h 10 m
no fares
HEL · 16 km
1 h 35 m
no fares
PSA · 65 km
RomeFCO, CIA
3 h 20 m
no fares
HEL · 16 km
1 h 10 m
no fares
GOA · 86 km
AmsterdamAMS
2 h 25 m
€251-299
1 stop
HEL · 16 km
1 h 55 m
€210-262
1 stop
PSA · 65 km
CopenhagenCPH
1 h 45 m
€111-131
HEL · 16 km
2 h 15 m
€102-140
1 stop
PSA · 65 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
2 h 30 m
€203-241
1 stop
HEL · 16 km
1 h 30 m
no fares
PSA · 65 km
BerlinBER
2 h 0 m
€150-181
1 stop
HEL · 16 km
1 h 50 m
€119-200
1 stop
PSA · 65 km
CataniaCTA
3 h 45 m
no fares
HEL · 16 km
1 h 35 m
€55-66
PSA · 65 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 2026-08 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

MeasureHelsinkiLa Spezia
Official languageFinnish, SwedishItalian
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation17 m3 m
Main airportHelsinki Vantaa Airport (HEL)16 km from centre120 non-stop destinationsPisa International Airport (PSA)65 km from centre81 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureHelsinkiLa Spezia
City population694,39292,119
People per km²3,2391,792
Museums within 10 km7412
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12
Distinct cuisines in the centre7822
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Helsinki or La Spezia 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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. 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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.