Los Angeles or Miami?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on museums & heritage and year-round weather with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and good for families with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
The verdict
Choose Los Angeles if you travel for museums and walkable sights, prefer milder daytime heat, and want a long dry stretch from July to October.
Choose Miami if the sea is the point: 20 beaches nearby, water warm enough for swimming in every month of the year, and more park space and attractions near the centre for families.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Miami leads by 66 points.66
| Los Angeles | Miami | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 29 | 95 |
| Beaches 25 km | 11 | — |
| Beaches 10 km | 0 | 20 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 12 |
| Warmest sea temp | 20.2 °C | — |
| Scoring variant | beachScoreWideRing | — |
| Declared | 2026-08-25 | — |
| Register | seed/editorial-overrides.json | — |
| Coast distance | — | 1 km |
| Water distance | — | 1 km |
Places to eat. Los Angeles leads by 1 points.1
| Los Angeles | Miami | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 66 | 65 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 1,337 | 898 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 22 | 29 |
Museums & heritage. Los Angeles leads by 26 points.26
| Los Angeles | Miami | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 49 | 23 |
| Museums within 10 km | 69 | 28 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 23 | 6 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 33 | 21 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 1 | 0 |
Nightlife. Los Angeles leads by 4 points.4
| Los Angeles | Miami | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 50 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 660 | 538 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 432 | 287 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 65 | 53 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 64 | 63 |
Nature & day trips. Miami leads by 10 points.10
| Los Angeles | Miami | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 72 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 26 | 16 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 80 | 48 |
| Park area within 2 km | 20 hectares | 50 hectares |
Good for families. Miami leads by 11 points.11
| Los Angeles | Miami | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 33 | 44 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 11 | 14 |
| Park area within 2 km | 20 hectares | 50 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 2 | 2 |
Sights concentration. Los Angeles leads by 12 points.12
| Los Angeles | Miami | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 42 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 88 | 45 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Los Angeles and Miami are level on 43.
| Los Angeles | Miami | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 43 | 43 |
| Price level global | 100 | 100 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Los Angeles leads by 13 points.13
| Los Angeles | Miami | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 87 | 74 |
| Monthly daytime high | 18.6 °C to 24.7 °C | 24.7 °C to 32.7 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 0 mm to 76 mm | 47 mm to 267 mm |
| Dry months | 8 | 0 |
Where they differ
Los Angeles has about twice as many museums as Miami, and one UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach where Miami has none. Its weather is the steadier kind for walking about, with daytime highs of 19-25°C across the year against Miami's 25-33°C, and 8 months at 40mm of rain or less where Miami has none.
Miami is the swimming city. It has 20 beaches nearby where Los Angeles has none, and sea at 21°C or more every month of the year, which Los Angeles never reaches.
Where they are alike
Eating out is where the two are hardest to separate. Los Angeles has somewhat more restaurants near the centre, Miami a somewhat wider range of kitchens, so either way you have a full week of dinners without repeating yourself.
Nights out are comparable too: both have a similar number of nightclubs, though Los Angeles keeps most of its own within reach of the centre while about half of Miami's sit further out. Both also have 2 theme parks within reach.
Which traveller are you?
If swimming is the point of the trip, Miami wins outright: 20 beaches within reach and sea at 21°C or more in every month, where Los Angeles has no beaches at all and never water that warm.
If you travel for museums and walking, Los Angeles has about twice as many museums, twice as many notable places within walking distance of the centre, and a UNESCO-listed site within day-trip reach.
Families lean Miami, with more tourist attractions near the centre and about three times the park space, though both cities have 2 theme parks within reach. For wilder day trips, Los Angeles has more protected land, 26% against 16%.
What the numbers don't tell you
Two things here are unmeasured rather than low. No daily cost figure exists for either city, so the value comparison between them carries no information and nothing in this data tells you which trip is dearer. Sunshine hours are missing for both, so that side of the weather comparison is simply unrecorded, and the monthly picture rests on temperature, rainfall and sea temperature alone.
A strong beach reading is also not a promise of a good week: Miami's warmest, most swimmable months are its wettest, at 186-267mm. Los Angeles cuts the other way, with 73-76mm in midwinter and a sea that stays cool for swimming all year.
When should you go?
The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Los Angeles: 1991-2020 normals, Los Angeles Airport (18.5 km from centre). Miami: 1991-2020 normals, Miami International Airport (10 km from centre).
Los Angeles peaks from July to October: highs of 24-25°C, sea at 20°C and virtually no rain, so plans hold. January and February are its wet months, at 73-76mm, and the daytime warmth drops off.
Miami is better from December to March, when highs sit at 25-27°C and rain is held to 47-63mm. June to September brings 32-33°C alongside 186-267mm a month, which is heavy going unless you are mainly there to swim.
Getting there
| Flying from | Los Angeles | Miami |
|---|---|---|
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 5 h 20 m no fares LAX · 19 km | 2 h 45 m €205-247 MIA · 7 km |
| ChicagoORD, MDW, DPA, PWK +1 | 4 h 0 m no fares LAX · 19 km | 2 h 55 m €143-193 MIA · 7 km |
| DenverDEN, APA | 2 h 20 m no fares LAX · 19 km | 3 h 55 m no fares MIA · 7 km |
| HoustonIAH, HOU | 3 h 15 m €173-245 LAX · 19 km | 2 h 30 m €103-188 1 stop MIA · 7 km |
| SeattleSEA, BFI | 2 h 30 m no fares LAX · 19 km | 5 h 50 m €344-394 MIA · 7 km |
| San FranciscoSFO | 1 h 20 m no fares LAX · 19 km | 5 h 35 m no fares MIA · 7 km |
| WashingtonIAD, DCA | 5 h 0 m €196-293 1 stop LAX · 19 km | 2 h 25 m €127-180 MIA · 7 km |
| Mexico CityMEX, NLU, TLC | 3 h 35 m €261-303 1 stop LAX · 19 km | 3 h 5 m €278-290 MIA · 7 km |
| MadridMAD | 11 h 40 m no fares LAX · 19 km | 9 h 0 m €522-631 1 stop MIA · 7 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 16 h 25 m €964-1015 LAX · 19 km | 15 h 30 m €891-1074 2 stops MIA · 7 km |
The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-09 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.
Before you go
| Measure | Los Angeles | Miami |
|---|---|---|
| Currency | US Dollar (USD) | US Dollar (USD) |
| Sockets | AB120 V, 60 Hz | AB120 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer | UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer |
| Emergency number | 911 | 911 |
| Elevation | 106 m | 2 m |
| Main airport | Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)19 km from centre180 non-stop destinations | Miami International Airport (MIA)7 km from centre199 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Los Angeles | Miami |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 3,898,747 | 442,241 |
| People per km² | 2,994 | 3,046 |
| Museums within 10 km | 38 | 17 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 1 | 0 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 46 | 39 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | None | 12 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Los Angeles or Miami somewhere new.