VacationSelector
Turquoise water off Giftun Island, Hurghada
HurghadaTurquoise water off Giftun Island
Inverness Castle above the River Ness, Inverness
InvernessInverness Castle above the River Ness

Photos: Hurghada by Andrey Korchagin, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Inverness by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Hurghada or Inverness?

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 Hurghada for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • wellness

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

Choose Inverness for

  • day trips
  • getting around
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Inverness’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. Hurghada 84, Inverness 20: Hurghada leads by 64 points.
Food & drink. Hurghada 34, Inverness 36: Inverness leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Hurghada 14, Inverness 27: Inverness leads by 13 points.
Nightlife. Hurghada 40, Inverness 28: Hurghada leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. Hurghada 72, Inverness 84: Inverness leads by 12 points.
Day trips. Hurghada 30, Inverness 56: Inverness leads by 26 points.
Good for families. Hurghada 62, Inverness 55: Hurghada leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Hurghada 22, Inverness 48: Inverness leads by 26 points.
Shopping & style. Hurghada 24, Inverness 30: Inverness leads by 6 points.
Affordability. Hurghada 80, Inverness 38: Hurghada leads by 42 points.
Live music & performing arts. Hurghada 10, Inverness 33: Inverness leads by 23 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Hurghada 44, Inverness 30: Hurghada leads by 14 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Hurghada and Inverness.

Your match

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

Hurghada
Best match
43match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Inverness
40match

Wins on day trips and getting around with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Hurghada in July

37 °Cdaytime high
28 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Inverness in July

19 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
69 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
14 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
HurghadaInverness

Where the figures come from

Inverness 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.

Inverness's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Kinloss.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Hurghada: 1991-2020 normals, Hurguada (15.2 km from centre). Inverness: 2005-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Inverness / Dalcross (11.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureHurghadaInverness
Official languageArabicEnglish
CurrencyEgyptian Pound (EGP)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsCF220 V, 50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 122, ambulance 123, fire 180112 or 999
Elevation11 m7 m
Main airportHurghada International Airport (HRG)9 km from centre111 non-stop destinationsInverness Airport (INV)12 km from centre15 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureHurghadaInverness
City population214,24747,380
People per km²-2,289
Museums within 10 km13
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Hurghada or Inverness 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). 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. 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.

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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.