VacationSelector
Inverness Castle above the River Ness, Inverness
InvernessInverness Castle above the River Ness
The red cable car above Wellington, Wellington
WellingtonThe red cable car above Wellington

Photos: Inverness by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Wellington by lumoplank, CC0.

Inverness or Wellington?

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
  • nature and the outdoors
  • prices

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

Choose Wellington for

  • food and drink
  • live music and the arts
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Wellington’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, Wellington 33: Wellington leads by 13 points.
Food & drink. Inverness 36, Wellington 62: Wellington leads by 26 points.
Culture & sights. Inverness 27, Wellington 44: Wellington leads by 17 points.
Nightlife. Inverness 28, Wellington 45: Wellington leads by 17 points.
Nature & outdoors. Inverness 84, Wellington 78: Inverness leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Inverness 56, Wellington 40: Inverness leads by 16 points.
Good for families. Inverness 55, Wellington 62: Wellington leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Inverness 48, Wellington 68: Wellington leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Inverness 30, Wellington 42: Wellington leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Inverness 38, Wellington 33: Inverness leads by 5 points.
Live music & performing arts. Inverness 33, Wellington 56: Wellington leads by 23 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Inverness and Wellington are level on 30.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Inverness
40match

Wins on day trips and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Wellington
Best match
49match

Wins on food and drink and live music and the arts 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

Wellington in July

12 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
111 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
12 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°5°10°15°20°25°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
InvernessWellington

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.

Wellington's sunshine is measured 47 km from the centre, at Paraparaumu Aerodrome.

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). Wellington: 1961-1990 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Wellington Aerodrome Aws (5.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureInvernessWellington
Official languageEnglishEnglish, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999111
Elevation7 m0 m
Main airportInverness Airport (INV)12 km from centre15 non-stop destinationsWellington International Airport (WLG)5 km from centre20 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureInvernessWellington
City population47,380216,200
People per km²2,289487
Museums within 10 km312
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Wellington 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.