VacationSelector
The Aare at Unterseen, Interlaken, Interlaken
InterlakenThe Aare at Unterseen, Interlaken
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera

Photos: Interlaken by Roy Egloff, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License.

Interlaken or Kyoto?

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 Interlaken for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches
  • getting around

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

Choose Kyoto for

  • culture and sights
  • food and drink
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Kyoto’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. Interlaken 30, Kyoto 15: Interlaken leads by 15 points.
Food & drink. Interlaken 25, Kyoto 85: Kyoto leads by 60 points.
Culture & sights. Interlaken 8, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 88 points.
Nightlife. Interlaken 15, Kyoto 35: Kyoto leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Interlaken 97, Kyoto 70: Interlaken leads by 27 points.
Day trips. Interlaken 78, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 18 points.
Good for families. Interlaken 72, Kyoto 68: Interlaken leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Interlaken 80, Kyoto 72: Interlaken leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Interlaken 22, Kyoto 72: Kyoto leads by 50 points.
Affordability. Interlaken 8, Kyoto 50: Kyoto leads by 42 points.
Live music & performing arts. Interlaken 15, Kyoto 60: Kyoto leads by 45 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Interlaken 40, Kyoto 70: Kyoto leads by 30 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Interlaken and Kyoto.

Your match

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

Interlaken
41match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and beaches with your weighting.

Kyoto
Best match
66match

Wins on culture and sights and food and drink with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Interlaken in July

24 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
126 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Kyoto in July

31 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
225 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
InterlakenKyoto

Where the figures come from

Interlaken 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.

Kyoto's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Osaka.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Interlaken: 2005-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Meiringen / Unterbach (19.3 km from centre). Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureInterlakenKyoto
Official languageFrench, German, Italian, RomanshJapanese
CurrencySwiss Franc (CHF)Yen (JPY)
SocketsCJ230 V, 50 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+9
Emergency number112Police 110, fire 119
Elevation571 m51 m
Main airportZürich Airport (ZRH)100 km from centre226 non-stop destinationsKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureInterlakenKyoto
City population6,1231,463,723
People per km²1,4241,768
Museums within 10 km377
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km24
Swim season, months above 21 °C-5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Interlaken or Kyoto 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. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.