VacationSelector
Inverness Castle above the River Ness, Inverness
InvernessInverness Castle above the River Ness
Painted wooden houses under palms in Key West, Key West
Key WestPainted wooden houses under palms in Key West

Photos: Inverness by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Key West by Dominik Gryzbon, Pexels License.

Inverness or Key West?

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 Inverness for

  • day trips
  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Key West for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Key West’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. Inverness 20, Key West 60: Key West leads by 40 points.
Food & drink. Inverness 36, Key West 45: Key West leads by 9 points.
Culture & sights. Inverness 27, Key West 40: Key West leads by 13 points.
Nightlife. Inverness 28, Key West 62: Key West leads by 34 points.
Nature & outdoors. Inverness 84, Key West 62: Inverness leads by 22 points.
Day trips. Inverness 56, Key West 28: Inverness leads by 28 points.
Good for families. Inverness 55, Key West 40: Inverness leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Inverness 48, Key West 62: Key West leads by 14 points.
Shopping & style. Inverness and Key West are level on 30.
Affordability. Inverness 38, Key West 15: Inverness leads by 23 points.
Live music & performing arts. Inverness 33, Key West 38: Key West leads by 5 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Inverness 30, Key West 40: Key West leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Inverness and Key West.

Your match

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

Inverness
40match

Wins on day trips and prices with your weighting.

Key West
Best match
44match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Inverness in July

19 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
69 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
14 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

Key West in July

32 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
84 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
InvernessKey West

Where the figures come from

Inverness 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.

Inverness's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Kinloss.

Key West's temperatures are measured 69 km from the centre, at Key West Airport.

Key West 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. Inverness: 2005-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Inverness / Dalcross (11.9 km from centre). Key West: 1991-2020 normals, Key West Airport (69.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureInvernessKey West
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation7 m4 m
Main airportInverness Airport (INV)12 km from centre15 non-stop destinationsKey West International Airport (EYW)2 km from centre24 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureInvernessKey West
City population47,38026,444
People per km²2,2891,407
Museums within 10 km37
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Inverness or Key West somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). 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. 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.