VacationSelector
Inverness Castle above the River Ness, Inverness
InvernessInverness Castle above the River Ness
Hawthorne Bridge and downtown, Portland
PortlandHawthorne Bridge and downtown

Photos: Inverness by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Portland by Cacophony, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Inverness or Portland?

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

Inverness does not lead in any category we score.

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

Choose Portland for

  • food and drink
  • nightlife
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Portland’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 and Portland are level on 20.
Food & drink. Inverness 36, Portland 68: Portland leads by 32 points.
Culture & sights. Inverness 27, Portland 38: Portland leads by 11 points.
Nightlife. Inverness 28, Portland 52: Portland leads by 24 points.
Nature & outdoors. Inverness and Portland are level on 84.
Day trips. Inverness 56, Portland 58: Portland leads by 2 points.
Good for families. Inverness and Portland are level on 55.
Getting around. Inverness 48, Portland 62: Portland leads by 14 points.
Shopping & style. Inverness 30, Portland 52: Portland leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Inverness and Portland are level on 38.
Live music & performing arts. Inverness 33, Portland 55: Portland leads by 22 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Inverness 30, Portland 42: Portland leads by 12 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Inverness
40match

Has no clear advantage with the weighting you have chosen.

Portland
Best match
52match

Wins on food and drink 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

Portland in July

27 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
13 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
InvernessPortland

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). Portland: 1991-2020 normals, Portland International Airport (9.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureInvernessPortland
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation7 m152 m
Main airportInverness Airport (INV)12 km from centre15 non-stop destinationsPortland International Airport (PDX)10 km from centre88 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureInvernessPortland
City population47,380652,503
People per km²2,2891,736
Museums within 10 km317
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Portland 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.