VacationSelector
The Ferris wheel on Santa Monica Pier, Los Angeles
Los AngelesThe Ferris wheel on Santa Monica Pier
The wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind, Queenstown
QueenstownThe wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind

Photos: Los Angeles by Domenico Convertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Queenstown by Robert Linsdell, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Los Angeles or Queenstown?

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 Los Angeles for

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

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

Choose Queenstown for

  • getting around
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Queenstown’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. Los Angeles 60, Queenstown 20: Los Angeles leads by 40 points.
Food & drink. Los Angeles 84, Queenstown 45: Los Angeles leads by 39 points.
Culture & sights. Los Angeles 66, Queenstown 12: Los Angeles leads by 54 points.
Nightlife. Los Angeles 67, Queenstown 42: Los Angeles leads by 25 points.
Nature & outdoors. Los Angeles 80, Queenstown 97: Queenstown leads by 17 points.
Day trips. Los Angeles 60, Queenstown 50: Los Angeles leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Los Angeles 84, Queenstown 60: Los Angeles leads by 24 points.
Getting around. Los Angeles 25, Queenstown 45: Queenstown leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Los Angeles 80, Queenstown 28: Los Angeles leads by 52 points.
Affordability. Los Angeles 24, Queenstown 20: Los Angeles leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. Los Angeles 83, Queenstown 14: Los Angeles leads by 69 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Los Angeles 60, Queenstown 42: Los Angeles leads by 18 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Los Angeles and Queenstown.

Your match

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

Los Angeles
Best match
64match

Wins on live music and the arts and culture and sights with your weighting.

Queenstown
40match

Wins on getting around and 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.

Los Angeles in July

24 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Queenstown in July

6 °Cdaytime high
-1 °Cnight-time low
115 mmrain in the month
No seasea
9 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°5°10°15°20°25°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Los AngelesQueenstown

Where the figures come from

Queenstown 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.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Los Angeles: 1991-2020 normals, Los Angeles Airport (18.5 km from centre). Queenstown: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureLos AngelesQueenstown
Official language-English, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency number911111
Elevation106 m324 m
Main airportLos Angeles International Airport (LAX)19 km from centre177 non-stop destinationsQueenstown Airport (ZQN)7 km from centre7 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureLos AngelesQueenstown
City population3,898,74729,000
People per km²2,994-
Museums within 10 km390
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Los Angeles or Queenstown somewhere new.

Browse every destination

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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.