VacationSelector
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera
Palms at CityPlace on Rosemary Avenue, West Palm Beach
West Palm BeachPalms at CityPlace on Rosemary Avenue

Photos: Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License; West Palm Beach by Michael Rivera, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Kyoto or West Palm Beach?

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
  • day trips
  • getting around

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

Choose West Palm Beach for

  • beaches
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on West Palm Beach’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, West Palm Beach 80: West Palm Beach leads by 65 points.
Food & drink. Kyoto 85, West Palm Beach 52: Kyoto leads by 33 points.
Culture & sights. Kyoto 96, West Palm Beach 42: Kyoto leads by 54 points.
Nightlife. Kyoto 35, West Palm Beach 36: West Palm Beach leads by 1 points.
Nature & outdoors. Kyoto 70, West Palm Beach 58: Kyoto leads by 12 points.
Day trips. Kyoto 96, West Palm Beach 55: Kyoto leads by 41 points.
Good for families. Kyoto 68, West Palm Beach 66: Kyoto leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Kyoto 72, West Palm Beach 38: Kyoto leads by 34 points.
Shopping & style. Kyoto 72, West Palm Beach 64: Kyoto leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Kyoto 50, West Palm Beach 23: Kyoto leads by 27 points.
Live music & performing arts. Kyoto 60, West Palm Beach 47: Kyoto leads by 13 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Kyoto 70, West Palm Beach 44: Kyoto leads by 26 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Kyoto and West Palm Beach.

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 day trips with your weighting.

West Palm Beach
50match

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

West Palm Beach in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
145 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
KyotoWest Palm Beach

Where the figures come from

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

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 km from centre). West Palm Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Palm Beach International (5.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureKyotoWest Palm Beach
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-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110, fire 119911
Elevation51 m6 m
Main airportKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinationsPresident Donald J. Trump International Airport (DJT)6 km from centre42 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureKyotoWest Palm Beach
City population1,463,723117,415
People per km²1,768786
Museums within 10 km774
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km40
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Kyoto or West Palm Beach 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.