Interlaken or Monaco?
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 beaches & swimming and sights concentration 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 cooler mountain summers, with highs near 24°C, quiet evenings and a small place where the walking matters more than the sights.
Choose Monaco if you want the water and the density: 50 beaches nearby, a sea warm enough to swim in for four months of the year, a great many notable places within walking distance of the centre, theme parks for children and a mild winter.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Monaco leads by 73 points.73
| Interlaken | Monaco | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 73 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 4 |
| Beaches 10 km | 12 | 50 |
| Coast distance | 713 km | 0 km |
| Water distance | — | 0 km |
Places to eat. Monaco leads by 10 points.10
| Interlaken | Monaco | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 29 | 39 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 118 | 269 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 17 | 16 |
Museums & heritage. Monaco leads by 15 points.15
| Interlaken | Monaco | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 23 | 38 |
| Museums within 10 km | 5 | 23 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 2 | 8 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 40 | 35 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 2 |
Nightlife. Monaco leads by 4 points.4
| Interlaken | Monaco | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 4 | 8 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 42 | 69 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 38 | 63 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 90 | 91 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 3 | 7 |
Nature & day trips. Monaco leads by 26 points.26
| Interlaken | Monaco | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 27 | 53 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 19 | 24 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 17 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 54 |
| Park area within 2 km | 5 hectares | 15 hectares |
Good for families. Monaco leads by 21 points.21
| Interlaken | Monaco | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 14 | 35 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 11 | 14 |
| Park area within 2 km | 5 hectares | 15 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 3 |
Sights concentration. Monaco leads by 42 points.42
| Interlaken | Monaco | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 22 | 64 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 14 | 154 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Year-round weather. Monaco leads by 17 points.17
| Interlaken | Monaco | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 57 | 74 |
| Monthly daytime high | 2.8 °C to 23.6 °C | 13.3 °C to 27.9 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 34 mm to 68 mm | 13 mm to 138 mm |
| Dry months | 3 | 3 |
Where they differ
Interlaken is the cooler and quieter of the two. Summer highs stop near 24°C rather than 28°C, which makes long days on foot easier, and with 12 beaches nearby the water is a sideline rather than the point.
Monaco is the stronger choice on nearly everything else. It has 50 beaches nearby and four months of sea at 21°C or more, far more notable places within walking distance of the centre, and more park space close in. 24% of the surrounding land is protected, and 3 theme parks are within reach.
Where they are alike
Nightlife is limited in both. Neither has much in the way of bars or clubs, and what exists in each sits close to the centre, so an evening out is a short walk rather than a plan.
Eating and heritage are closer than they first look. Monaco has more restaurants near the centre, but the range of kitchens is much the same in both, and each has 2 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach.
Which traveller are you?
A family with swimmers should take Monaco. It has 50 beaches nearby, a sea reaching 25°C in late summer, 3 theme parks within reach and more park space near the centre for slower days.
A walker is better served by Interlaken. Summer highs near 24°C make effort easier than heat in the high twenties, and 19% of the surrounding land is protected, so day trips are the reason to be there.
A traveller after museums, restaurants and streets full of notable places should pick Monaco, where all three sit close to the centre. Neither city, though, will satisfy anyone who wants late nights out.
What the numbers don't tell you
No cost comparison is possible here. The dataset carries no daily budget for Monaco, so nothing on this page tells you what a day there costs against Interlaken, and the value axis should not be read as a price ranking between the two.
The sunshine figure is missing for Interlaken, because no nearby station records it, so that side of the weather comparison is unmeasured rather than poor. And Monaco's beach strength rests on a narrow window: the two months when the sea reaches 25°C and rain almost stops are also the months everyone else picks, so expect company on those 50 beaches.
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). Monaco: 1991-2020 normals, Nice (19.9 km from centre).
Interlaken is at its best in July and August, with highs near 24°C, though these are also its wettest summer months, at around 61mm. September is drier, at 38mm, and still comfortable for walking.
Monaco's same two months are hotter, at 28°C, with the sea at 25°C and very little rain, and its winters stay mild enough to visit. Autumn is the catch: October and November are its wettest, at 124-138mm.
Getting there
| Flying from | Interlaken | Monaco |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 35 m €110-163 ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 55 m €76-223 NCE · 18 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 1 h 15 m €163-196 ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 30 m €78-111 NCE · 18 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 8 h 5 m €606-782 1 stop ZRH · 100 km | 8 h 10 m €666-799 1 stop NCE · 18 km |
| BerlinBER | 1 h 25 m €140-176 ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 55 m €116-156 NCE · 18 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 45 m €110-133 ZRH · 100 km | 2 h 45 m €202-329 NCE · 18 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 25 m €234-276 ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 50 m €170-248 NCE · 18 km |
| MadridMAD | 2 h 5 m €158-220 1 stop ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 50 m €137-165 NCE · 18 km |
| PalmaPMI | 1 h 50 m €84-103 ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 20 m no fares NCE · 18 km |
| RomeFCO, CIA | 1 h 30 m €70-92 ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 10 m €69-133 NCE · 18 km |
| TunisTUN | 1 h 50 m no fares MXP · 135 km | 1 h 35 m €148-281 NCE · 18 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 | Monaco |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French, German, Italian, Romansh | French |
| Currency | Swiss Franc (CHF) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CJ230 V, 50 Hz | CEF230 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 |
| Elevation | 571 m | 68 m |
| Main airport | Zürich Airport (ZRH)100 km from centre181 non-stop destinations | Nice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)18 km from centre129 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 10 days | 12 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Interlaken | Monaco |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 6,123 | 38,857 |
| People per km² | 1,424 | 18,503 |
| Museums within 10 km | 3 | 14 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 2 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 22 | 29 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | – | 4 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Interlaken or Monaco somewhere new.