VacationSelector
Painted wooden houses under palms in Key West, Key West
Key WestPainted wooden houses under palms in Key West
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera

Photos: Key West by Dominik Gryzbon, Pexels License; Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License.

Key West or Kyoto?

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 Key West for

  • beaches
  • nightlife

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

Choose Kyoto for

  • day trips
  • culture and sights
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Kyoto’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. Key West 60, Kyoto 15: Key West leads by 45 points.
Food & drink. Key West 45, Kyoto 85: Kyoto leads by 40 points.
Culture & sights. Key West 40, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 56 points.
Nightlife. Key West 62, Kyoto 35: Key West leads by 27 points.
Nature & outdoors. Key West 62, Kyoto 70: Kyoto leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Key West 28, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 68 points.
Good for families. Key West 40, Kyoto 68: Kyoto leads by 28 points.
Getting around. Key West 62, Kyoto 72: Kyoto leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Key West 30, Kyoto 72: Kyoto leads by 42 points.
Affordability. Key West 15, Kyoto 50: Kyoto leads by 35 points.
Live music & performing arts. Key West 38, Kyoto 60: Kyoto leads by 22 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Key West 40, Kyoto 70: Kyoto leads by 30 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Key West and Kyoto.

Your match

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

Key West
44match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Kyoto
Best match
66match

Wins on day trips 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.

Key West in July

32 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
84 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Kyoto in July

31 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
225 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Key WestKyoto

Where the figures come from

Key West's temperatures are measured 69 km from the centre, at Key West Airport.

Key West 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.

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

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Key West: 1991-2020 normals, Key West Airport (69.1 km from centre). Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureKey WestKyoto
Official language-Japanese
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Yen (JPY)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+9
Emergency number911Police 110, fire 119
Elevation4 m51 m
Main airportKey West International Airport (EYW)2 km from centre24 non-stop destinationsKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureKey WestKyoto
City population26,4441,463,723
People per km²1,4071,768
Museums within 10 km777
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km04
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Key West 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. 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.