VacationSelector
The Outback, with the Tenmile Range in the distance, Keystone
KeystoneThe Outback, with the Tenmile Range in the distance
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera

Photos: Keystone by Rudi Riet, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License.

Keystone 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 Keystone for

  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Kyoto for

  • culture and sights
  • food and drink
  • 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. Keystone 5, Kyoto 15: Kyoto leads by 10 points.
Food & drink. Keystone 27, Kyoto 85: Kyoto leads by 58 points.
Culture & sights. Keystone 7, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 89 points.
Nightlife. Keystone 12, Kyoto 35: Kyoto leads by 23 points.
Nature & outdoors. Keystone 93, Kyoto 70: Keystone leads by 23 points.
Day trips. Keystone 55, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 41 points.
Good for families. Keystone 66, Kyoto 68: Kyoto leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Keystone 50, Kyoto 72: Kyoto leads by 22 points.
Shopping & style. Keystone 22, Kyoto 72: Kyoto leads by 50 points.
Affordability. Keystone 12, Kyoto 50: Kyoto leads by 38 points.
Live music & performing arts. Keystone 22, Kyoto 60: Kyoto leads by 38 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Keystone 32, Kyoto 70: Kyoto leads by 38 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Keystone and Kyoto.

Your match

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

Keystone
34match

Wins on nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Kyoto
Best match
66match

Wins on culture and sights and food and drink with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Keystone in July

21 °Cdaytime high
5 °Cnight-time low
39 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 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

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
KeystoneKyoto

Where the figures come from

Keystone's temperatures are measured 51 km from the centre, at Leadville / Stringtown.

Keystone's station stands 232 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

Keystone 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. Keystone: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Leadville / Stringtown (50.8 km from centre). Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureKeystoneKyoto
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-7, UTC-6 in summerUTC+9
Emergency number911Police 110, fire 119
Elevation2,796 m51 m
Main airportDenver International Airport (DEN)116 km from centre231 non-stop destinationsKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureKeystoneKyoto
City population1,3691,463,723
People per km²131,768
Museums within 10 km077
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km04
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 Keystone 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. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.