VacationSelector

Kathmandu or Kyoto?

Two destinations compared in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Swayambhunath with its prayer flags, Kathmandu
Kathmandu

Photo: Nabin K. Sapkota, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped

The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
Kyoto

Photo: Bert Mulder, Pexels License

Your match

Kathmandu
48
match

Wins on prices and nightlife with your weighting.

Kyoto
✓ Best match
66
match

Wins on families and getting around with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

Scoreboard

Our verdict on each category, scored 0 to 100 against fixed benchmark cities.

KathmanduKyoto
Beaches & swimming. Kyoto leads by 11 points.11
Food & drink. Kyoto leads by 30 points.30
Culture & sights. Kyoto leads by 14 points.14
Nightlife. Kathmandu leads by 1 points.1
Nature & outdoors. Kathmandu and Kyoto are level on 70.
Day trips. Kyoto leads by 40 points.40
Good for families. Kyoto leads by 48 points.48
Getting around. Kyoto leads by 47 points.47
Shopping & style. Kyoto leads by 17 points.17
Affordability. Kathmandu leads by 47 points.47
Live music & performing arts. Kyoto leads by 32 points.32
Wellness & relaxation. Kyoto leads by 25 points.25
0255075100

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

When should you go?

Pick the month you can travel and see both cities side by side. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Climate figures for July
JulyKathmanduKyoto
Daytime high29 °C31 °C
Night-time low20 °C23 °C
Rainfall in the month384 mm225 mm
Sunshine4 hours a day6 hours a day
Sea temperatureNo sea25 °C
Daylight14 hours a day14 hours a day

The whole year

Each row is shaded against that destination’s own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that figure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Kathmandu
19
22
26
29
29
29
29
29
28
27
23
20
Kyoto
9
9
13
20
24
27
31
32
28
22
17
11
Sea temperature, °C
Kathmandu
No coastline within reach
Kyoto
14
13
13
15
18
21
25
27
26
23
20
17
Rainfall, mm
Kathmandu
16
23
37
57
113
260
384
317
211
48
7
10
Kyoto
47
67
112
150
147
232
225
149
215
108
68
40
Daylight, hours per day
Kathmandu
11
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
12
11
10
Kyoto
10
11
12
13
14
15
14
14
12
11
10
10
Sunshine, hours per day
Kathmandu
6
6
7
7
7
5
4
4
5
7
7
7
Kyoto
5
5
6
6
7
5
6
7
5
5
5
5

Where the figures come from

Kyoto's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Osaka.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Kathmandu: 1991-2020 normals, Kathmandu Airport (4.7 km from centre). Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromKathmanduKyoto
SeoulICN, GMP
5 h 20 m
no fares
KTM · 4 km
1 h 40 m
€107-142
KIX · 81 km
BangkokBKK, DMK
3 h 15 m
€389-511
KTM · 4 km
5 h 35 m
€288-317
KIX · 81 km
TokyoHND, NRT
6 h 45 m
no fares
KTM · 4 km
1 h 10 m
€118-135
ITM · 39 km
Kuala LumpurKUL, SZB
4 h 30 m
€444-465
1 stop
KTM · 4 km
6 h 30 m
no fares
KIX · 81 km
New DelhiDEL
1 h 40 m
€175-205
KTM · 4 km
7 h 5 m
no fares
ITM · 39 km
ShanghaiPVG, SHA
4 h 50 m
no fares
KTM · 4 km
2 h 10 m
€237-303
KIX · 81 km
Hong KongHKG
4 h 5 m
no fares
KTM · 4 km
3 h 35 m
€254-314
KIX · 81 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
4 h 10 m
€400-446
KTM · 4 km
9 h 35 m
no fares
KIX · 81 km
DohaDOH
4 h 35 m
€459-552
KTM · 4 km
10 h 0 m
no fares
KIX · 81 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
6 h 55 m
€583-665
1 stop
KTM · 4 km
10 h 55 m
no fares
KIX · 81 km

The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-08 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.

Before you go

MeasureKathmanduKyoto
Official languageNepaliJapanese
CurrencyNepalese Rupee (NPR)Yen (JPY)
SocketsCM230 V, 50 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+5:45UTC+9
Emergency numberPolice 100, ambulance 102, fire 101Police 110, fire 119
Elevation1,300 m51 m
Main airportTribhuvan International Airport (KTM)4 km from centre38 non-stop destinationsKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-16 days

By the numbers

MeasureKathmanduKyoto
City population845,7671,463,723
People per km²17,1211,768
Museums within 10 km976
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km14
Swim season, months above 21 °C-5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Kathmandu or Kyoto somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate and flight figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-27. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.