Los Angeles or Rio de Janeiro?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on places to eat and year-round weather with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and value for money with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Rio de Janeiro leads by 71 points.71
| Los Angeles | Rio de Janeiro | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 29 | 100 |
| Beaches 25 km | 11 | — |
| Beaches 10 km | 0 | 61 |
| 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 12 points.12
| Los Angeles | Rio de Janeiro | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 66 | 54 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 1,337 | 804 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 22 | 16 |
Museums & heritage. Rio de Janeiro leads by 20 points.20
| Los Angeles | Rio de Janeiro | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 49 | 69 |
| Museums within 10 km | 69 | 110 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 23 | 51 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 33 | 46 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 1 | 3 |
Nightlife. Rio de Janeiro leads by 3 points.3
| Los Angeles | Rio de Janeiro | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 57 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 660 | 818 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 432 | 509 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 65 | 62 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 64 | 50 |
Nature & day trips. Los Angeles and Rio de Janeiro are level on 62.
| Los Angeles | Rio de Janeiro | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 62 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 26 | 21 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 17 |
| Land share of disc % | 80 | 57 |
| Park area within 2 km | 20 hectares | 113 hectares |
Good for families. Rio de Janeiro leads by 26 points.26
| Los Angeles | Rio de Janeiro | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 33 | 59 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 11 | 30 |
| Park area within 2 km | 20 hectares | 113 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 2 | 1 |
Sights concentration. Rio de Janeiro leads by 2 points.2
| Los Angeles | Rio de Janeiro | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 56 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 88 | 98 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Rio de Janeiro leads by 38 points.38
| Los Angeles | Rio de Janeiro | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 43 | 81 |
| Price level global | 100 | 46.1 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Los Angeles leads by 2 points.2
| Los Angeles | Rio de Janeiro | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 87 | 85 |
| Monthly daytime high | 18.6 °C to 24.7 °C | 24 °C to 28.4 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 0 mm to 76 mm | 42 mm to 232 mm |
| Dry months | 8 | 0 |
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). Rio de Janeiro: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.
Getting there
| Flying from | Los Angeles | Rio de Janeiro |
|---|---|---|
| Sao PauloGRU, VCP, CGH, RTE | 12 h 20 m no fares LAX · 19 km | 1 h 5 m €113-134 GIG · 12 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 5 h 20 m no fares LAX · 19 km | 9 h 45 m €609-699 2 stops GIG · 12 km |
| DallasDFW, DAL, AFW | 3 h 0 m €188-208 LAX · 19 km | 10 h 35 m no fares GIG · 12 km |
| SantiagoSCL | 11 h 15 m no fares LAX · 19 km | 4 h 5 m no fares GIG · 12 km |
| AtlantaATL, PDK | 4 h 20 m €288 LAX · 19 km | 9 h 40 m no fares GIG · 12 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 11 h 25 m €600-640 1 stop LAX · 19 km | 11 h 30 m €957-1014 2 stops GIG · 12 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 11 h 0 m no fares LAX · 19 km | 11 h 35 m €996-1109 2 stops GIG · 12 km |
| HoustonIAH, HOU | 3 h 15 m €173-245 LAX · 19 km | 10 h 10 m no fares GIG · 12 km |
| TorontoYYZ, YHM, YTZ | 4 h 45 m no fares LAX · 19 km | 10 h 25 m no fares GIG · 12 km |
| DubaiDXB, DWC | 16 h 25 m €964-1015 LAX · 19 km | 14 h 40 m €1,154-1306 GIG · 12 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 2026-08 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 | Rio de Janeiro |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | – | Portuguese |
| Currency | US Dollar (USD) | Brazilian Real (BRL) |
| Sockets | AB120 V, 60 Hz | CN60 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer | UTC-3 |
| Emergency number | 911 | Police 190, ambulance 192, fire 193 |
| Elevation | 106 m | 31 m |
| Main airport | Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)19 km from centre180 non-stop destinations | Rio de Janeiro Galeão – Tom Jobim International Airport (GIG)12 km from centre59 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 14 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Los Angeles | Rio de Janeiro |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 3,898,747 | 6,211,223 |
| People per km² | 2,994 | 4,930 |
| Museums within 10 km | 38 | 70 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 1 | 3 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 46 | 27 |
| 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 Rio de Janeiro somewhere new.