VacationSelector

Kathmandu or Sao Paulo?

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

São Paulo Cathedral, Sao Paulo
Sao Paulo

Photo: Webysther Nunes, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped

Your match

Kathmandu
48
match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Sao Paulo
✓ Best match
58
match

Wins on nightlife and live music and the arts 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.

KathmanduSao Paulo
Beaches & swimming. Sao Paulo leads by 38 points.38
Food & drink. Sao Paulo leads by 29 points.29
Culture & sights. Kathmandu leads by 22 points.22
Nightlife. Sao Paulo leads by 50 points.50
Nature & outdoors. Kathmandu leads by 22 points.22
Day trips. Kathmandu leads by 9 points.9
Good for families. Sao Paulo leads by 32 points.32
Getting around. Sao Paulo leads by 19 points.19
Shopping & style. Sao Paulo leads by 15 points.15
Affordability. Kathmandu leads by 35 points.35
Live music & performing arts. Sao Paulo leads by 48 points.48
Wellness & relaxation. Kathmandu leads by 20 points.20
0255075100

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

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
JulyKathmanduSao Paulo
Daytime high29 °C23 °C
Night-time low20 °C13 °C
Rainfall in the month384 mm53 mm
Sunshine4 hours a day6 hours a day
Daylight14 hours a day11 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
Sao Paulo
28
29
28
27
24
23
23
25
25
27
27
28
Rainfall, mm
Kathmandu
16
23
37
57
113
260
384
317
211
48
7
10
Sao Paulo
297
259
206
89
64
55
53
26
82
128
146
234
Daylight, hours per day
Kathmandu
11
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
12
11
10
Sao Paulo
13
13
12
12
11
11
11
11
12
13
13
14
Sunshine, hours per day
Kathmandu
6
6
7
7
7
5
4
4
5
7
7
7
Sao Paulo
4
6
6
5
5
5
6
6
5
6
5
5

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Kathmandu: 1991-2020 normals, Kathmandu Airport (4.7 km from centre). Sao Paulo: 1991-2020 normals, Sao Paulo (5.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromKathmanduSao Paulo
DubaiDXB, DWC
4 h 10 m
€400-446
KTM · 4 km
15 h 0 m
no fares
GRU · 21 km
DohaDOH
4 h 35 m
€459-552
KTM · 4 km
14 h 35 m
no fares
GRU · 21 km
BeijingPEK, PKX
4 h 25 m
€450-780
1 stop
KTM · 4 km
21 h 20 m
€1,139-1567
2 stops
GRU · 21 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
6 h 55 m
€583-665
1 stop
KTM · 4 km
13 h 5 m
no fares
GRU · 21 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 2026-10 to 2026-12, 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

MeasureKathmanduSao Paulo
Official languageNepaliPortuguese
CurrencyNepalese Rupee (NPR)Brazilian Real (BRL)
SocketsCM230 V, 50 HzCN60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+5:45UTC-3
Emergency numberPolice 100, ambulance 102, fire 101Police 190, ambulance 192, fire 193
Elevation1,300 m760 m
Main airportTribhuvan International Airport (KTM)4 km from centre38 non-stop destinationsSão Paulo/Guarulhos–Governor André Franco Montoro International Airport (GRU)21 km from centre104 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-15 days

By the numbers

MeasureKathmanduSao Paulo
City population845,76711,451,999
People per km²17,1217,519
Museums within 10 km990
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Kathmandu or Sao Paulo 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. 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.