VacationSelector
The Aare at Unterseen, Interlaken, Interlaken
InterlakenThe Aare at Unterseen, Interlaken
The County Courthouse and its garden, Santa Barbara
Santa BarbaraThe County Courthouse and its garden

Photos: Interlaken by Roy Egloff, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Santa Barbara by Warren LeMay, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Interlaken or Santa Barbara?

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

  • getting around
  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Santa Barbara for

  • culture and sights
  • food and drink
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Barbara’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, Santa Barbara 60: Santa Barbara leads by 30 points.
Food & drink. Interlaken 25, Santa Barbara 62: Santa Barbara leads by 37 points.
Culture & sights. Interlaken 8, Santa Barbara 48: Santa Barbara leads by 40 points.
Nightlife. Interlaken 15, Santa Barbara 34: Santa Barbara leads by 19 points.
Nature & outdoors. Interlaken 97, Santa Barbara 80: Interlaken leads by 17 points.
Day trips. Interlaken 78, Santa Barbara 55: Interlaken leads by 23 points.
Good for families. Interlaken 72, Santa Barbara 64: Interlaken leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Interlaken 80, Santa Barbara 46: Interlaken leads by 34 points.
Shopping & style. Interlaken 22, Santa Barbara 45: Santa Barbara leads by 23 points.
Affordability. Interlaken 8, Santa Barbara 15: Santa Barbara leads by 7 points.
Live music & performing arts. Interlaken 15, Santa Barbara 50: Santa Barbara leads by 35 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Interlaken 40, Santa Barbara 50: Santa Barbara leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Interlaken and Santa Barbara.

Your match

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

Interlaken
41match

Wins on getting around and day trips with your weighting.

Santa Barbara
Best match
51match

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 seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Santa Barbara in July

24 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
18 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°5°10°15°20°25°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
InterlakenSanta Barbara

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.

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). Santa Barbara: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Barbara / La Patera (11.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureInterlakenSanta Barbara
Official languageFrench, German, Italian, Romansh-
CurrencySwiss Franc (CHF)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCJ230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation571 m15 m
Main airportZürich Airport (ZRH)100 km from centre226 non-stop destinationsSanta Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA)12 km from centre13 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureInterlakenSanta Barbara
City population6,12388,665
People per km²1,424816
Museums within 10 km310
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °C-None

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Interlaken or Santa Barbara 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. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.