VacationSelector

Kathmandu or York?

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

York Minster from the city walls, York
York

Photo: PAUL FARMER, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped

Your match

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Kathmandu
48
match

Wins on prices and food and drink with your weighting.

York
49
match

Wins on getting around and families 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.

KathmanduYork
Beaches & swimming. York leads by 10 points.10
Food & drink. Kathmandu leads by 13 points.13
Culture & sights. Kathmandu leads by 12 points.12
Nightlife. Kathmandu and York are level on 36.
Nature & outdoors. Kathmandu leads by 8 points.8
Day trips. York leads by 24 points.24
Good for families. York leads by 40 points.40
Getting around. York leads by 47 points.47
Shopping & style. Kathmandu leads by 9 points.9
Affordability. Kathmandu leads by 59 points.59
Live music & performing arts. York leads by 10 points.10
Wellness & relaxation. Kathmandu leads by 11 points.11
0255075100

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

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
JulyKathmanduYork
Daytime high29 °C21 °C
Night-time low20 °C12 °C
Rainfall in the month384 mm56 mm
Sunshine4 hours a day6 hours a day
Daylight14 hours a day17 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
York
7
8
10
13
16
19
21
20
18
14
10
7
Rainfall, mm
Kathmandu
16
23
37
57
113
260
384
317
211
48
7
10
York
53
44
39
48
43
61
56
65
58
66
62
60
Daylight, hours per day
Kathmandu
11
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
12
11
10
York
8
10
12
14
16
17
17
15
13
11
9
8
Sunshine, hours per day
Kathmandu
6
6
7
7
7
5
4
4
5
7
7
7
York
2
3
4
5
6
5
6
5
4
3
2
2

Where the figures come from

York's temperatures are measured 48 km from the centre, at Leeming.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Kathmandu: 1991-2020 normals, Kathmandu Airport (4.7 km from centre). York: 1991-2020 normals, Leeming (47.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromKathmanduYork
DubaiDXB, DWC
4 h 10 m
€400-446
KTM · 4 km
7 h 20 m
no fares
MAN · 104 km
DohaDOH
4 h 35 m
€459-552
KTM · 4 km
7 h 0 m
no fares
MAN · 104 km
BangkokBKK, DMK
3 h 15 m
€389-511
KTM · 4 km
12 h 0 m
no fares
MAN · 104 km
Kuwait CityKWI
4 h 55 m
no fares
KTM · 4 km
6 h 20 m
no fares
MAN · 104 km
BeijingPEK, PKX
4 h 25 m
€450-780
1 stop
KTM · 4 km
10 h 10 m
no fares
MAN · 104 km
Hong KongHKG
4 h 5 m
no fares
KTM · 4 km
12 h 0 m
no fares
MAN · 104 km
RiyadhRUH
5 h 10 m
no fares
KTM · 4 km
6 h 40 m
no fares
MAN · 104 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
6 h 55 m
€583-665
1 stop
KTM · 4 km
3 h 50 m
no fares
MAN · 104 km
Abu DhabiAUH
4 h 15 m
€415-478
KTM · 4 km
7 h 20 m
no fares
MAN · 104 km
ShanghaiPVG, SHA
4 h 50 m
no fares
KTM · 4 km
11 h 30 m
no fares
MAN · 104 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

MeasureKathmanduYork
Official languageNepaliEnglish
CurrencyNepalese Rupee (NPR)Pound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsCM230 V, 50 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+5:45UTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 100, ambulance 102, fire 101112 or 999
Elevation1,300 m25 m
Main airportTribhuvan International Airport (KTM)4 km from centre38 non-stop destinationsLeeds Bradford Airport (LBA)39 km from centre69 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-8 days

By the numbers

MeasureKathmanduYork
City population845,767208,400
People per km²17,121766
Museums within 10 km924
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12

Where else could you go?

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