VacationSelector
Inverness Castle above the River Ness, Inverness
InvernessInverness Castle above the River Ness
A painted funicular on the hillside, Valparaiso
ValparaisoA painted funicular on the hillside

Photos: Inverness by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Valparaiso by Maclemo, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Inverness or Valparaiso?

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
  • families
  • wellness

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

Choose Valparaiso for

  • culture and sights
  • nightlife
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Valparaiso’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, Valparaiso 36: Valparaiso leads by 16 points.
Food & drink. Inverness 36, Valparaiso 50: Valparaiso leads by 14 points.
Culture & sights. Inverness 27, Valparaiso 62: Valparaiso leads by 35 points.
Nightlife. Inverness 28, Valparaiso 56: Valparaiso leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Inverness 84, Valparaiso 60: Inverness leads by 24 points.
Day trips. Inverness 56, Valparaiso 63: Valparaiso leads by 7 points.
Good for families. Inverness 55, Valparaiso 33: Inverness leads by 22 points.
Getting around. Inverness 48, Valparaiso 44: Inverness leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Inverness and Valparaiso are level on 30.
Affordability. Inverness 38, Valparaiso 60: Valparaiso leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. Inverness 33, Valparaiso 38: Valparaiso leads by 5 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Inverness 30, Valparaiso 18: Inverness leads by 12 points.
0255075100

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

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 families with your weighting.

Valparaiso
Best match
46match

Wins on culture and sights 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

Valparaiso in July

15 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
71 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
13 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°5°10°15°20°25°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
InvernessValparaiso

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.

Valparaiso 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). Valparaiso: 2010-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Viña Del Mar / Montemar (17 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureInvernessValparaiso
Official languageEnglishSpanish
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Chilean Peso (CLP)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzCL220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-4, UTC-3 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999Police 133/134, ambulance 131, fire 132
Elevation7 m21 m
Main airportInverness Airport (INV)12 km from centre15 non-stop destinationsComodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport (SCL)87 km from centre67 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureInvernessValparaiso
City population47,380296,655
People per km²2,2896,180
Museums within 10 km317
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °CNoneNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Inverness or Valparaiso 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.