VacationSelector
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera
The harbour front with the church tower above the houses, Saint-Tropez
Saint-TropezThe harbour front with the church tower above the houses

Photos: Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License; Saint-Tropez by AXP Photography, Pexels License.

Kyoto or Saint-Tropez?

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

  • culture and sights
  • prices
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Saint-Tropez for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Saint-Tropez’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, Saint-Tropez 82: Saint-Tropez leads by 67 points.
Food & drink. Kyoto 85, Saint-Tropez 48: Kyoto leads by 37 points.
Culture & sights. Kyoto 96, Saint-Tropez 35: Kyoto leads by 61 points.
Nightlife. Kyoto 35, Saint-Tropez 60: Saint-Tropez leads by 25 points.
Nature & outdoors. Kyoto 70, Saint-Tropez 72: Saint-Tropez leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Kyoto 96, Saint-Tropez 57: Kyoto leads by 39 points.
Good for families. Kyoto 68, Saint-Tropez 42: Kyoto leads by 26 points.
Getting around. Kyoto 72, Saint-Tropez 32: Kyoto leads by 40 points.
Shopping & style. Kyoto 72, Saint-Tropez 64: Kyoto leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Kyoto 50, Saint-Tropez 8: Kyoto leads by 42 points.
Live music & performing arts. Kyoto 60, Saint-Tropez 18: Kyoto leads by 42 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Kyoto 70, Saint-Tropez 35: Kyoto leads by 35 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Kyoto and Saint-Tropez.

Your match

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

Kyoto
Best match
66match

Wins on culture and sights and prices with your weighting.

Saint-Tropez
46match

Wins on beaches and nightlife 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

Saint-Tropez in July

32 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
10 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
23 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
KyotoSaint-Tropez

Where the figures come from

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

Saint-Tropez 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.

Saint-Tropez's sunshine is measured 62 km from the centre, at Nice.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 km from centre). Saint-Tropez: 1999-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Le Luc (24.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureKyotoSaint-Tropez
Official languageJapaneseFrench
CurrencyYen (JPY)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the regionCE230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+9UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110, fire 119112
Elevation51 m0 m
Main airportKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinationsNice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)64 km from centre130 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureKyotoSaint-Tropez
City population1,463,7233,582
People per km²1,768320
Museums within 10 km774
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km40
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 months3 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Kyoto or Saint-Tropez 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.