VacationSelector

Helsinki or Thessaloniki?

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, 2 points apart

Helsinki
57
match

Wins on places to eat and good for families with your weighting.

Thessaloniki
59
match

Wins on year-round weather and nature & day trips 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.

HelsinkiThessaloniki
Beaches & swimming. Helsinki leads by 5 points.5
HelsinkiThessaloniki
Score6055
Swim season months05
Beaches 10 km1574
Coast distance0 km0 km
Water distance0 km0 km
Places to eat. Helsinki leads by 21 points.21
HelsinkiThessaloniki
Score7150
Restaurants within 2 km of centre1,005640
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km3815
Museums & heritage. Helsinki and Thessaloniki are level on 49.
HelsinkiThessaloniki
Score4949
Museums within 10 km5734
Museums within 2 km of centre2322
Share of museums within 2 km %4065
Unesco sites within 50 km11
Nightlife. Thessaloniki leads by 11 points.11
HelsinkiThessaloniki
Score5667
Drinking venues within 4 km8071,407
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre607805
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7557
Nightclubs within 4 km4061
Nature & day trips. Thessaloniki leads by 23 points.23
HelsinkiThessaloniki
Score4265
Protected land share 50 km %325
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %5383
Park area within 2 km185 hectares39 hectares
Good for families. Helsinki leads by 17 points.17
HelsinkiThessaloniki
Score5841
Tourist attractions within 2 km2016
Park area within 2 km185 hectares39 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km11
Sights concentration. Helsinki leads by 17 points.17
HelsinkiThessaloniki
Score7356
Notable places within 2 km25798
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Thessaloniki leads by 18 points.18
HelsinkiThessaloniki
Score5674
Price level global81.655.8
Daily budget€184€125
Year-round weather. Thessaloniki leads by 24 points.24
HelsinkiThessaloniki
Score4872
Monthly daytime high-1.5 °C to 21.9 °C9.7 °C to 32.1 °C
Monthly rainfall32 mm to 84 mm21 mm to 56 mm
Dry months39
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
Thessaloniki
10
11
15
19
25
30
32
32
27
21
16
11
Sea temperature, °C
Helsinki
2
1
1
2
6
11
16
17
14
10
7
4
Thessaloniki
14
13
13
15
19
23
26
27
25
21
18
15
Rainfall, mm
Helsinki
54
38
35
32
41
56
58
84
55
75
70
59
Thessaloniki
35
32
38
36
44
30
23
21
33
41
38
56
Daylight, hours per day
Helsinki
7
9
12
15
17
19
18
16
13
10
8
6
Thessaloniki
10
11
12
13
14
15
15
14
13
11
10
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Helsinki
1
2
5
7
9
9
9
8
5
3
1
1
Thessaloniki
4
4
6
6
9
11
11
10
8
6
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). Thessaloniki: 1991-2020 normals, Thessaloniki Airport (14 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromHelsinkiThessaloniki
AthensATH
3 h 35 m
no fares
HEL · 16 km
1 h 0 m
€97-118
SKG · 14 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
2 h 50 m
€112-224
HEL · 16 km
3 h 15 m
€95-156
SKG · 14 km
StockholmARN, BMA, NYO, VST
1 h 10 m
€62-63
HEL · 16 km
3 h 10 m
€138-200
1 stop
SKG · 14 km
MunichMUC
2 h 30 m
no fares
HEL · 16 km
2 h 10 m
€188-242
1 stop
SKG · 14 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
2 h 30 m
€203-241
1 stop
HEL · 16 km
2 h 30 m
€119-127
SKG · 14 km
AmsterdamAMS
2 h 25 m
€251-299
1 stop
HEL · 16 km
2 h 55 m
€225-285
1 stop
SKG · 14 km
BerlinBER
2 h 0 m
€150-181
1 stop
HEL · 16 km
2 h 25 m
€156-243
1 stop
SKG · 14 km
ViennaVIE
2 h 25 m
€136-220
1 stop
HEL · 16 km
1 h 50 m
€125-175
1 stop
SKG · 14 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
3 h 10 m
€206-225
HEL · 16 km
1 h 15 m
€151-156
SKG · 14 km
CopenhagenCPH
1 h 45 m
€111-131
HEL · 16 km
2 h 50 m
no fares
SKG · 14 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

MeasureHelsinkiThessaloniki
Official languageFinnish, SwedishGreek
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Euro (EUR)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number112112
Elevation17 m6 m
Main airportHelsinki Vantaa Airport (HEL)16 km from centre120 non-stop destinationsThessaloniki Macedonia International Airport (SKG)14 km from centre88 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureHelsinkiThessaloniki
City population694,392309,617
People per km²3,23916,042
Museums within 10 km7431
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Distinct cuisines in the centre7845
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone5 months

Where else could you go?

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