VacationSelector
Inverness Castle above the River Ness, Inverness
InvernessInverness Castle above the River Ness
Sint Servaasbrug over the Maas, Maastricht
MaastrichtSint Servaasbrug over the Maas

Photos: Inverness by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Maastricht by Michielverbeek, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Inverness or Maastricht?

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

  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches

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

Choose Maastricht for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Maastricht’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, Maastricht 8: Inverness leads by 12 points.
Food & drink. Inverness 36, Maastricht 58: Maastricht leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Inverness 27, Maastricht 60: Maastricht leads by 33 points.
Nightlife. Inverness 28, Maastricht 42: Maastricht leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. Inverness 84, Maastricht 58: Inverness leads by 26 points.
Day trips. Inverness 56, Maastricht 77: Maastricht leads by 21 points.
Good for families. Inverness and Maastricht are level on 55.
Getting around. Inverness 48, Maastricht 74: Maastricht leads by 26 points.
Shopping & style. Inverness 30, Maastricht 60: Maastricht leads by 30 points.
Affordability. Inverness and Maastricht are level on 38.
Live music & performing arts. Inverness 33, Maastricht 40: Maastricht leads by 7 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Inverness 30, Maastricht 52: Maastricht leads by 22 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Inverness and Maastricht.

Your match

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

Inverness
40match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and beaches with your weighting.

Maastricht
Best match
52match

Wins on culture and sights and shopping 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

Maastricht in July

24 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
73 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
16 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°5°10°15°20°25°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
InvernessMaastricht

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.

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). Maastricht: 1991-2020 normals, Maastricht Airport Zuid Limburg (10 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureInvernessMaastricht
Official languageEnglishDutch
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Euro (EUR)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999112
Elevation7 m49 m
Main airportInverness Airport (INV)12 km from centre15 non-stop destinationsMaastricht Aachen Airport (MST)9 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureInvernessMaastricht
City population47,380120,227
People per km²2,2892,000
Museums within 10 km321
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km05
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Inverness or Maastricht 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.