VacationSelector
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera
The colonnaded court of Luxor Temple, Luxor
LuxorThe colonnaded court of Luxor Temple

Photos: Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License; Luxor by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Kyoto or Luxor?

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 Kyoto for

  • food and drink
  • live music and the arts
  • shopping

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

Choose Luxor for

  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Luxor’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. Kyoto 15, Luxor 6: Kyoto leads by 9 points.
Food & drink. Kyoto 85, Luxor 30: Kyoto leads by 55 points.
Culture & sights. Kyoto 96, Luxor 95: Kyoto leads by 1 points.
Nightlife. Kyoto 35, Luxor 10: Kyoto leads by 25 points.
Nature & outdoors. Kyoto 70, Luxor 32: Kyoto leads by 38 points.
Day trips. Kyoto 96, Luxor 62: Kyoto leads by 34 points.
Good for families. Kyoto 68, Luxor 30: Kyoto leads by 38 points.
Getting around. Kyoto 72, Luxor 35: Kyoto leads by 37 points.
Shopping & style. Kyoto 72, Luxor 25: Kyoto leads by 47 points.
Affordability. Kyoto 50, Luxor 90: Luxor leads by 40 points.
Live music & performing arts. Kyoto 60, Luxor 10: Kyoto leads by 50 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Kyoto 70, Luxor 28: Kyoto leads by 42 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Kyoto and Luxor.

Your match

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

Kyoto
Best match
66match

Wins on food and drink and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Luxor
38match

Wins on prices with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

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

Luxor in July

41 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
KyotoLuxor

Where the figures come from

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

Luxor 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.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 km from centre). Luxor: 1998-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Luxor (6.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureKyotoLuxor
Official languageJapaneseArabic
CurrencyYen (JPY)Egyptian Pound (EGP)
SocketsAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the regionCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+9UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110, fire 119Police 122, ambulance 123, fire 180
Elevation51 m89 m
Main airportKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinationsLuxor International Airport (LXR)7 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureKyotoLuxor
City population1,463,723202,232
People per km²1,768486
Museums within 10 km774
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km41
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 months-

Where else could you go?

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

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national 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. 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.