VacationSelector
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera
The old railway depot in the snow, Steamboat Springs
Steamboat SpringsThe old railway depot in the snow

Photos: Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License; Steamboat Springs by Jeffrey Beall, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Kyoto or Steamboat Springs?

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

  • day trips
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

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

Choose Steamboat Springs for

  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Steamboat Springs’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, Steamboat Springs 7: Kyoto leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. Kyoto 85, Steamboat Springs 30: Kyoto leads by 55 points.
Culture & sights. Kyoto 96, Steamboat Springs 14: Kyoto leads by 82 points.
Nightlife. Kyoto 35, Steamboat Springs 20: Kyoto leads by 15 points.
Nature & outdoors. Kyoto 70, Steamboat Springs 88: Steamboat Springs leads by 18 points.
Day trips. Kyoto 96, Steamboat Springs 12: Kyoto leads by 84 points.
Good for families. Kyoto 68, Steamboat Springs 62: Kyoto leads by 6 points.
Getting around. Kyoto 72, Steamboat Springs 46: Kyoto leads by 26 points.
Shopping & style. Kyoto 72, Steamboat Springs 22: Kyoto leads by 50 points.
Affordability. Kyoto 50, Steamboat Springs 17: Kyoto leads by 33 points.
Live music & performing arts. Kyoto 60, Steamboat Springs 28: Kyoto leads by 32 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Kyoto and Steamboat Springs are level on 70.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Kyoto and Steamboat Springs.

Your match

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

Kyoto
Best match
66match

Wins on day trips and culture and sights with your weighting.

Steamboat Springs
35match

Wins on nature and the outdoors 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

Steamboat Springs in July

28 °Cdaytime high
10 °Cnight-time low
31 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
KyotoSteamboat Springs

Where the figures come from

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

Steamboat Springs 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). Steamboat Springs: 2011-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Steamboat Springs / Steamboat Ii (5.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureKyotoSteamboat Springs
Official languageJapanese-
CurrencyYen (JPY)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the regionAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+9UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110, fire 119911
Elevation51 m2,052 m
Main airportKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinationsYampa Valley Airport (HDN)33 km from centre17 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureKyotoSteamboat Springs
City population1,463,72313,224
People per km²1,768503
Museums within 10 km770
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km40
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 Steamboat Springs 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.