VacationSelector
Rathausquai on the Reuss, Lucerne
LucerneRathausquai on the Reuss
Waterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor, Newport Beach
Newport BeachWaterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor

Photos: Lucerne by ILOVESwitzerland, Pexels License; Newport Beach by Don Ramey Logan, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Lucerne or Newport Beach?

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

  • getting around
  • culture and sights
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Newport Beach for

  • beaches
  • shopping
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Newport Beach’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, Newport Beach 70: Newport Beach leads by 35 points.
Food & drink. Lucerne 35, Newport Beach 50: Newport Beach leads by 15 points.
Culture & sights. Lucerne 58, Newport Beach 20: Lucerne leads by 38 points.
Nightlife. Lucerne 28, Newport Beach 33: Newport Beach leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. Lucerne 92, Newport Beach 66: Lucerne leads by 26 points.
Day trips. Lucerne 78, Newport Beach 70: Lucerne leads by 8 points.
Good for families. Lucerne 66, Newport Beach 80: Newport Beach leads by 14 points.
Getting around. Lucerne 86, Newport Beach 20: Lucerne leads by 66 points.
Shopping & style. Lucerne 46, Newport Beach 62: Newport Beach leads by 16 points.
Affordability. Lucerne 8, Newport Beach 15: Newport Beach leads by 7 points.
Live music & performing arts. Lucerne 66, Newport Beach 46: Lucerne leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Lucerne 46, Newport Beach 44: Lucerne leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Lucerne and Newport Beach.

Your match

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

Lucerne
Best match
54match

Wins on getting around and culture and sights with your weighting.

Newport Beach
48match

Wins on beaches and shopping 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

Newport Beach in July

26 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
LucerneNewport Beach

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). Newport Beach: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1981-2010) normals, Santa Ana / Paularino (7.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLucerneNewport Beach
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-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation436 m3 m
Main airportZürich Airport (ZRH)49 km from centre226 non-stop destinationsJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)7 km from centre53 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureLucerneNewport Beach
City population86,23485,239
People per km²2,963622
Museums within 10 km144
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C-None

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Lucerne or Newport Beach 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.