Interlaken or Maastricht?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Has no clear advantage with the weighting you have chosen.
Wins on good for families and museums & heritage with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
The verdict
Choose Interlaken if you want a small mountain town of about 6,000 people, quiet evenings, and drier months for walking rather than a city's indoor attractions.
Choose Maastricht if you want museums, restaurants and bars within walking distance of the centre, parks and theme parks for children, and milder winter days near 6°C.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Interlaken and Maastricht are level on 0.
| Interlaken | Maastricht | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 12 | 6 |
| Coast distance | 713 km | 118 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Maastricht leads by 19 points.19
| Interlaken | Maastricht | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 29 | 48 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 118 | 338 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 17 | 22 |
Museums & heritage. Maastricht leads by 30 points.30
| Interlaken | Maastricht | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 23 | 53 |
| Museums within 10 km | 5 | 23 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 2 | 13 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 40 | 57 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 5 |
Nightlife. Maastricht leads by 26 points.26
| Interlaken | Maastricht | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 4 | 30 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 42 | 223 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 38 | 182 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 90 | 82 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 3 | 13 |
Nature & day trips. Maastricht leads by 10 points.10
| Interlaken | Maastricht | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 27 | 37 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 19 | 19 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 11 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 5 hectares | 33 hectares |
Good for families. Maastricht leads by 32 points.32
| Interlaken | Maastricht | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 14 | 46 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 11 | 15 |
| Park area within 2 km | 5 hectares | 33 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 5 |
Sights concentration. Maastricht leads by 14 points.14
| Interlaken | Maastricht | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 22 | 36 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 14 | 32 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Maastricht leads by 23 points.23
| Interlaken | Maastricht | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 35 | 58 |
| Price level global | 110.5 | 79.2 |
| Daily budget | €248 | €181 |
Year-round weather. Maastricht leads by 2 points.2
| Interlaken | Maastricht | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 57 | 59 |
| Monthly daytime high | 2.8 °C to 23.6 °C | 5.7 °C to 23.8 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 34 mm to 68 mm | 41 mm to 84 mm |
| Dry months | 3 | 0 |
Where they differ
Interlaken is the smaller and quieter of the two, a town of 6,120 people against a city of 120,000, and it gets three months at 40mm of rain or less where Maastricht gets none.
Maastricht has many times as many museums, and 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against Interlaken's 2. For families it adds 5 theme parks where Interlaken has none, along with much more park space near the centre. Its bars, clubs and restaurants close to the centre outnumber Interlaken's several times over.
Where they are alike
Neither city is a swimming destination. Neither has a month with water at 21°C or more, and what there is means lakes and rivers rather than coast. Interlaken counts 12 beaches nearby and Maastricht 6, but in both cases the swimming is an add-on to summer.
Their summers also land in the same place, both topping out at 24°C, and 19% of the land around each is protected, so open country is within reach of both.
Which traveller are you?
If you are after quiet days outdoors, Interlaken fits: a small town with 12 beaches on the water nearby and three months at 40mm of rain or less, where the walking rather than the town is the point.
Families are better served in Maastricht, which has 5 theme parks within reach where Interlaken has none, much more park space near the centre and somewhat more attractions close in.
For museums, eating out and evenings, Maastricht again: many times more museums, 5 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against 2, many more restaurants near the centre and far more places to drink.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €248 for Interlaken's country and €181 for Maastricht's, are national estimates of restaurant and hotel price levels, not measurements of either city. A small resort town and a visited city can each sit well away from their national average, by more than the gap between the two countries.
No weather station near Interlaken records sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low. Its monthly picture rests on temperature and rainfall alone, while Maastricht has a recorded 1700 hours a year, so that side of the weather comparison is simply unmeasured.
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.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Interlaken: 2005-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Meiringen / Unterbach (19.3 km from centre). Maastricht: 1991-2020 normals, Maastricht Airport Zuid Limburg (10 km from centre).
Interlaken peaks from June to August at 22-24°C, though those are also among its wetter months, at 48-62mm. September holds 18°C with 38mm, the driest of its warm months, and suits settled walking weather.
Maastricht keeps 19-24°C from May to September, a longer mild run, but the rain is heavier, with midsummer bringing 69-84mm. Its real advantage is winter, when daytime highs sit near 6°C rather than Interlaken's 3°C.
Getting there
| Flying from | Interlaken | Maastricht |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 35 m €110-163 ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 10 m no fares EIN · 70 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 8 h 5 m €606-782 1 stop ZRH · 100 km | 7 h 35 m no fares BRU · 85 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 40 m €114-151 ZRH · 100 km | 2 h 0 m €148-192 1 stop EIN · 70 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 30 m €70-92 ZRH · 100 km | 2 h 5 m no fares EIN · 70 km |
| LisbonLIS | 2 h 40 m €188-233 ZRH · 100 km | 2 h 45 m no fares EIN · 70 km |
| WarsawWAW, WMI | 1 h 55 m €164-214 ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 55 m €123-157 1 stop EIN · 70 km |
| BudapestBUD | 1 h 35 m no fares ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 55 m €106-231 EIN · 70 km |
| BeijingPEK, PKX | 10 h 10 m €710-815 1 stop MXP · 135 km | 10 h 0 m no fares BRU · 85 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 15 m €232-366 1 stop ZRH · 100 km | 6 h 45 m no fares BRU · 85 km |
| Sao PauloGRU, VCP, CGH, RTE | 12 h 0 m no fares ZRH · 100 km | 12 h 0 m no fares BRU · 85 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
| Measure | Interlaken | Maastricht |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French, German, Italian, Romansh | Dutch |
| Currency | Swiss Franc (CHF) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CJ230 V, 50 Hz | CF230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer | UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 or 911 |
| Elevation | 571 m | 49 m |
| Main airport | Zürich Airport (ZRH)100 km from centre181 non-stop destinations | Maastricht Aachen Airport (MST)9 km from centre5 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 10 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Interlaken | Maastricht |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 6,123 | 120,227 |
| People per km² | 1,424 | 2,000 |
| Museums within 10 km | 3 | 21 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 5 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 22 | 33 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Interlaken or Maastricht somewhere new.