VacationSelector
The floating torii of Itsukushima at Miyajima, Hiroshima
HiroshimaThe floating torii of Itsukushima at Miyajima
The top of the Mountaintop Express lift on Vail Mountain, Vail
VailThe top of the Mountaintop Express lift on Vail Mountain

Photos: Hiroshima by Guohua Song, Pexels License; Vail by DReifGalaxyM31, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Hiroshima or Vail?

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 Hiroshima for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • day trips

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

Choose Vail for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Vail’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. Hiroshima 30, Vail 5: Hiroshima leads by 25 points.
Food & drink. Hiroshima 66, Vail 35: Hiroshima leads by 31 points.
Culture & sights. Hiroshima 60, Vail 10: Hiroshima leads by 50 points.
Nightlife. Hiroshima 45, Vail 30: Hiroshima leads by 15 points.
Nature & outdoors. Hiroshima 62, Vail 92: Vail leads by 30 points.
Day trips. Hiroshima 80, Vail 45: Hiroshima leads by 35 points.
Good for families. Hiroshima 60, Vail 55: Hiroshima leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Hiroshima 74, Vail 62: Hiroshima leads by 12 points.
Shopping & style. Hiroshima 52, Vail 35: Hiroshima leads by 17 points.
Affordability. Hiroshima 58, Vail 5: Hiroshima leads by 53 points.
Live music & performing arts. Hiroshima 38, Vail 42: Vail leads by 4 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Hiroshima 50, Vail 48: Hiroshima leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Hiroshima and Vail.

Your match

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

Hiroshima
Best match
56match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Vail
39match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and live music and the arts with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

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

Vail in July

29 °Cdaytime high
9 °Cnight-time low
35 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
HiroshimaVail

Where the figures come from

Vail's temperatures are measured 47 km from the centre, at Kremmling.

Vail's station stands 186 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Vail 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. Hiroshima: 1991-2020 normals, Hiroshima (1.7 km from centre). Vail: 2006-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Kremmling (46.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureHiroshimaVail
Official languageJapanese-
CurrencyYen (JPY)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the regionAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+9UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110, fire 119911
Elevation3 m2,445 m
Main airportHiroshima Airport (HIJ)43 km from centre10 non-stop destinationsEagle County Regional Airport (EGE)48 km from centre16 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureHiroshimaVail
City population1,198,0214,835
People per km²1,324400
Museums within 10 km181
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Hiroshima or Vail 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.