Interlaken or Paris?
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 nightlife 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 a town of about 6,000 people rather than a city, 12 beaches within reach, and are content with a short list of restaurants, bars and museums.
Choose Paris if you want sights packed within walking distance, a much wider range of places to eat, late nights and a lot on offer for children.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Interlaken and Paris are level on 0.
| Interlaken | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 0 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 12 | 2 |
| Coast distance | 713 km | 149 km |
| Water distance | — | — |
Places to eat. Paris leads by 61 points.61
| Interlaken | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 29 | 90 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 118 | 4,732 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 17 | 33 |
Museums & heritage. Paris leads by 53 points.53
| Interlaken | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 23 | 76 |
| Museums within 10 km | 5 | 185 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 2 | 65 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 40 | 35 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 2 | 4 |
Nightlife. Paris leads by 84 points.84
| Interlaken | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 4 | 88 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 42 | 3,796 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 38 | 1,694 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 90 | 45 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 3 | 201 |
Nature & day trips. Paris leads by 21 points.21
| Interlaken | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 27 | 48 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 19 | 28 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 26 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 100 |
| Park area within 2 km | 5 hectares | 82 hectares |
Good for families. Paris leads by 61 points.61
| Interlaken | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 14 | 75 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 11 | 89 |
| Park area within 2 km | 5 hectares | 82 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 3 |
Sights concentration. Paris leads by 72 points.72
| Interlaken | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 22 | 94 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 14 | 865 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Paris leads by 27 points.27
| Interlaken | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 35 | 62 |
| Price level global | 110.5 | 73.7 |
| Daily budget | €248 | €160 |
Year-round weather. Paris leads by 9 points.9
| Interlaken | Paris | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 57 | 66 |
| Monthly daytime high | 2.8 °C to 23.6 °C | 7.8 °C to 26 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 34 mm to 68 mm | 38 mm to 75 mm |
| Dry months | 3 | 1 |
Where they differ
Interlaken has 12 beaches nearby against Paris's 2, and a drier calendar: three months at 40mm of rain or less, where Paris has one.
Paris has many times as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, many times as many restaurants and a wider range of kitchens, and many times as many bars and clubs, though only about half sit near the centre. For families it adds 3 theme parks where Interlaken has none, plus far more park space.
Where they are alike
Neither city is a swimming destination. Interlaken has more beaches nearby than Paris, but neither has a month of sea at 21°C or more, so water is a side note on any trip to either.
Both also follow the same yearly shape: coldest in January, warmest in high summer, and easiest outdoors through the same middle stretch of the year. Both have protected land around them and day trips within reach, Paris with the larger share of it.
Which traveller are you?
Someone travelling for museums and city walking should pick Paris: many times as many museums as Interlaken, 4 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip reach against 2, and most of the notable sights close enough to cover on foot.
Families are better served in Paris too, with 3 theme parks within reach where Interlaken has none, far more park space near the centre, and many more attractions close to where you stay.
A traveller who wants quiet and open water should take Interlaken: a town of about 6,000 people, 12 beaches nearby and drier shoulder months, accepting few restaurants and very little after dark.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €248 and €160, are national estimates of restaurant and hotel price levels in the two countries, not measurements of either city. A capital or a heavily visited town can sit far from its own national average, by more than the gap between these two figures, so neither number tells you what a day on the ground will cost.
No weather station near either city records sunshine hours, so that side of the weather comparison is unmeasured and the monthly picture rests on temperature and rainfall alone. The beach count also flatters Interlaken: those 12 beaches come with no month of sea at 21°C or more, and its warmest months are among its wettest.
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). Paris: 1991-2020 normals, Paris-Montsouris (4.6 km from centre).
Interlaken peaks in midsummer at 23-24°C, though those are also its wettest months, near 60mm; September is drier at 38mm and still comfortable for walking. Winter is thin, with highs around 3°C.
Paris keeps usable weather for longer, 26°C in August and still 17°C in October, with milder winter days. Its wettest month is May at 75mm, when Interlaken is drier, so late spring is the one window that tips the other way.
Getting there
| Flying from | Interlaken | Paris |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 1 h 35 m €110-163 ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 5 m €63-103 CDG · 22 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 8 h 5 m €606-782 1 stop ZRH · 100 km | 7 h 30 m €579-648 1 stop CDG · 22 km |
| MadridMAD | 2 h 5 m €158-220 1 stop ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 55 m €107-141 ORY · 14 km |
| IstanbulIST, SAW | 2 h 45 m €110-133 ZRH · 100 km | 3 h 15 m €152-378 1 stop CDG · 22 km |
| LisbonLIS | 2 h 40 m €188-233 ZRH · 100 km | 2 h 20 m €138-242 ORY · 14 km |
| BarcelonaBCN | 1 h 40 m €114-151 ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 40 m €110-135 CDG · 22 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 1 h 25 m €234-276 ZRH · 100 km | 1 h 10 m €188-212 CDG · 22 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 6 h 15 m €232-366 1 stop ZRH · 100 km | 6 h 50 m €292-389 1 stop CDG · 22 km |
| Pointe-a-pitrePTP | 9 h 10 m no fares MXP · 135 km | 8 h 35 m no fares ORY · 14 km |
| BangkokBKK, DMK | 11 h 20 m no fares ZRH · 100 km | 11 h 45 m no fares CDG · 22 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 | Paris |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | French, German, Italian, Romansh | French |
| Currency | Swiss Franc (CHF) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CJ230 V, 50 Hz | CE230 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 | 27 m |
| Main airport | Zürich Airport (ZRH)100 km from centre181 non-stop destinations | Charles de Gaulle International Airport (CDG)22 km from centre277 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 10 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Interlaken | Paris |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 6,123 | 2,103,778 |
| People per km² | 1,424 | 19,960 |
| Museums within 10 km | 3 | 251 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 2 | 4 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 22 | 169 |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Interlaken or Paris somewhere new.