VacationSelector
Inverness Castle above the River Ness, Inverness
InvernessInverness Castle above the River Ness
The Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock, Petra
PetraThe Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock

Photos: Inverness by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Petra by Yasir Gürbüz, Pexels License.

Inverness or Petra?

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

  • families
  • day trips
  • nightlife

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

Choose Petra for

  • culture and sights
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Petra’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, Petra 5: Inverness leads by 15 points.
Food & drink. Inverness 36, Petra 22: Inverness leads by 14 points.
Culture & sights. Inverness 27, Petra 85: Petra leads by 58 points.
Nightlife. Inverness 28, Petra 5: Inverness leads by 23 points.
Nature & outdoors. Inverness 84, Petra 78: Inverness leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Inverness 56, Petra 30: Inverness leads by 26 points.
Good for families. Inverness 55, Petra 25: Inverness leads by 30 points.
Getting around. Inverness 48, Petra 25: Inverness leads by 23 points.
Shopping & style. Inverness 30, Petra 18: Inverness leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Inverness 38, Petra 45: Petra leads by 7 points.
Live music & performing arts. Inverness 33, Petra 10: Inverness leads by 23 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Inverness 30, Petra 28: Inverness leads by 2 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Inverness
Best match
40match

Wins on families and day trips with your weighting.

Petra
31match

Wins on culture and sights and prices 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

Petra in July

35 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
InvernessPetra

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.

Petra's temperatures are measured 34 km from the centre, at Ma'An.

Petra's station stands 219 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

Petra 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). Petra: 1991-2020 normals, Ma'An (33.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureInvernessPetra
Official languageEnglishArabic
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Jordanian Dinar (JOD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzBCFGJ230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+3
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation7 m850 m
Main airportInverness Airport (INV)12 km from centre15 non-stop destinationsKing Hussein International Airport (AQJ)90 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days-

By the numbers

MeasureInvernessPetra
City population47,380-
People per km²2,289-
Museums within 10 km32
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
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 Petra 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.