VacationSelector
Inverness Castle above the River Ness, Inverness
InvernessInverness Castle above the River Ness
The old railway depot in the snow, Steamboat Springs
Steamboat SpringsThe old railway depot in the snow

Photos: Inverness by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Steamboat Springs by Jeffrey Beall, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Inverness or Steamboat Springs?

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
  • beaches

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

Choose Steamboat Springs for

  • wellness
  • families
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Steamboat Springs’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, Steamboat Springs 7: Inverness leads by 13 points.
Food & drink. Inverness 36, Steamboat Springs 30: Inverness leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Inverness 27, Steamboat Springs 14: Inverness leads by 13 points.
Nightlife. Inverness 28, Steamboat Springs 20: Inverness leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Inverness 84, Steamboat Springs 88: Steamboat Springs leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Inverness 56, Steamboat Springs 12: Inverness leads by 44 points.
Good for families. Inverness 55, Steamboat Springs 62: Steamboat Springs leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Inverness 48, Steamboat Springs 46: Inverness leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Inverness 30, Steamboat Springs 22: Inverness leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Inverness 38, Steamboat Springs 17: Inverness leads by 21 points.
Live music & performing arts. Inverness 33, Steamboat Springs 28: Inverness leads by 5 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Inverness 30, Steamboat Springs 70: Steamboat Springs leads by 40 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Inverness
Best match
40match

Wins on day trips and prices with your weighting.

Steamboat Springs
35match

Wins on wellness and families 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

Steamboat Springs in July

28 °Cdaytime high
10 °Cnight-time low
31 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
InvernessSteamboat Springs

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.

Steamboat Springs 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). Steamboat Springs: 2011-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Steamboat Springs / Steamboat Ii (5.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureInvernessSteamboat Springs
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation7 m2,052 m
Main airportInverness Airport (INV)12 km from centre15 non-stop destinationsYampa Valley Airport (HDN)33 km from centre17 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureInvernessSteamboat Springs
City population47,38013,224
People per km²2,289503
Museums within 10 km30
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 Steamboat Springs 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.