VacationSelector
La Paz
Rathausquai on the Reuss, Lucerne
LucerneRathausquai on the Reuss

Photos: Lucerne by ILOVESwitzerland, Pexels License.

La Paz or Lucerne?

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 La Paz for

  • prices
  • food and drink
  • nightlife

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

Choose Lucerne for

  • families
  • getting around
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Lucerne’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. La Paz 3, Lucerne 35: Lucerne leads by 32 points.
Food & drink. La Paz 50, Lucerne 35: La Paz leads by 15 points.
Culture & sights. La Paz 52, Lucerne 58: Lucerne leads by 6 points.
Nightlife. La Paz 38, Lucerne 28: La Paz leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. La Paz 82, Lucerne 92: Lucerne leads by 10 points.
Day trips. La Paz 40, Lucerne 78: Lucerne leads by 38 points.
Good for families. La Paz 10, Lucerne 66: Lucerne leads by 56 points.
Getting around. La Paz 45, Lucerne 86: Lucerne leads by 41 points.
Shopping & style. La Paz 45, Lucerne 46: Lucerne leads by 1 points.
Affordability. La Paz 92, Lucerne 8: La Paz leads by 84 points.
Live music & performing arts. La Paz 35, Lucerne 66: Lucerne leads by 31 points.
Wellness & relaxation. La Paz 12, Lucerne 46: Lucerne leads by 34 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: La Paz and Lucerne.

Your match

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

La Paz
42match

Wins on prices and food and drink with your weighting.

Lucerne
Best match
54match

Wins on families and getting around with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

La Paz in July

13 °Cdaytime high
-2 °Cnight-time low
16 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
11 hdaylight a day

Lucerne in July

24 °Cdaytime high
13 °Cnight-time low
141 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
16 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°5°10°15°20°25°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
La PazLucerne

Where the figures come from

La Paz has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Lucerne 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.

Lucerne's sunshine is measured 42 km from the centre, at Zurich Town / Ville..

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. La Paz: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Lucerne: 2005-2025 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Emmen (4.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLa PazLucerne
Official languageSpanish, Aymara, Quechua, GuaraniFrench, German, Italian, Romansh
CurrencyBoliviano (BOB)Swiss Franc (CHF)
SocketsAC50 HzCJ230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-4UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation3,640 m436 m
Main airportEl Alto International Airport (LPB)6 km from centre12 non-stop destinationsZürich Airport (ZRH)49 km from centre226 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureLa PazLucerne
City population755,73286,234
People per km²1,6012,963
Museums within 10 km2114
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow La Paz or Lucerne somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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). 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.