VacationSelector
Inverness Castle above the River Ness, Inverness
InvernessInverness Castle above the River Ness
The Riverwalk and the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge, Wilmington
WilmingtonThe Riverwalk and the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge

Photos: Inverness by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Wilmington by Unexpected Snacks, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Inverness or Wilmington?

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
  • getting around
  • day trips

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

Choose Wilmington for

  • beaches
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Wilmington’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, Wilmington 73: Wilmington leads by 53 points.
Food & drink. Inverness 36, Wilmington 48: Wilmington leads by 12 points.
Culture & sights. Inverness 27, Wilmington 40: Wilmington leads by 13 points.
Nightlife. Inverness 28, Wilmington 40: Wilmington leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. Inverness 84, Wilmington 58: Inverness leads by 26 points.
Day trips. Inverness 56, Wilmington 45: Inverness leads by 11 points.
Good for families. Inverness 55, Wilmington 62: Wilmington leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Inverness 48, Wilmington 28: Inverness leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Inverness 30, Wilmington 33: Wilmington leads by 3 points.
Affordability. Inverness 38, Wilmington 42: Wilmington leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. Inverness 33, Wilmington 40: Wilmington leads by 7 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Inverness 30, Wilmington 33: Wilmington leads by 3 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Inverness and Wilmington.

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 getting around with your weighting.

Wilmington
Best match
45match

Wins on beaches and culture and sights 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

Wilmington in July

32 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
174 mmrain in the month
10 hsunshine a day
27 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
InvernessWilmington

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). Wilmington: 1991-2020 normals, Wilmington / The Palms Mobile Home Park (5.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureInvernessWilmington
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation7 m9 m
Main airportInverness Airport (INV)12 km from centre15 non-stop destinationsWilmington International Airport (ILM)5 km from centre25 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureInvernessWilmington
City population47,380115,451
People per km²2,289839
Museums within 10 km32
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone6 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Inverness or Wilmington 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.