VacationSelector
Rathausquai on the Reuss, Lucerne
LucerneRathausquai on the Reuss
Brooklyn Bridge and Lower Manhattan, New York
New YorkBrooklyn Bridge and Lower Manhattan

Photos: Lucerne by ILOVESwitzerland, Pexels License; New York by Jakub Hałun, CC BY 4.0, cropped.

Lucerne or New York?

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 Lucerne for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips
  • getting around

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

Choose New York for

  • nightlife
  • food and drink
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on New York’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. Lucerne 35, New York 50: New York leads by 15 points.
Food & drink. Lucerne 35, New York 92: New York leads by 57 points.
Culture & sights. Lucerne 58, New York 89: New York leads by 31 points.
Nightlife. Lucerne 28, New York 97: New York leads by 69 points.
Nature & outdoors. Lucerne 92, New York 55: Lucerne leads by 37 points.
Day trips. Lucerne 78, New York 68: Lucerne leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Lucerne 66, New York 70: New York leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Lucerne 86, New York 82: Lucerne leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Lucerne 46, New York 97: New York leads by 51 points.
Affordability. Lucerne 8, New York 12: New York leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. Lucerne 66, New York 99: New York leads by 33 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Lucerne 46, New York 42: Lucerne leads by 4 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Lucerne and New York.

Your match

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

Lucerne
54match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and day trips with your weighting.

New York
Best match
71match

Wins on nightlife and food and drink with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Lucerne in July

24 °Cdaytime high
13 °Cnight-time low
141 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
16 hdaylight a day

New York in July

30 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
107 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
22 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
LucerneNew York

Where the figures come from

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. Lucerne: 2005-2025 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Emmen (4.2 km from centre). New York: 1991-2020 normals, LaGuardia Airport (12.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLucerneNew York
Official languageFrench, German, Italian, Romansh-
CurrencySwiss Franc (CHF)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCJ230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation436 m25 m
Main airportZürich Airport (ZRH)49 km from centre226 non-stop destinationsJohn F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)21 km from centre189 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureLucerneNew York
City population86,2348,804,190
People per km²2,9637,256
Museums within 10 km14157
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12
Swim season, months above 21 °C-3 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Lucerne or New York 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. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.