VacationSelector
La Major cathedral from the harbour, Marseille
MarseilleLa Major cathedral from the harbour
The steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi, New Orleans
New OrleansThe steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi

Photos: Marseille by Charlotte Noblet, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; New Orleans by Bernard Spragg, CC0.

Marseille or New Orleans?

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 Marseille for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips

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

Choose New Orleans for

  • nightlife
  • live music and the arts
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on New Orleans’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. Marseille 72, New Orleans 14: Marseille leads by 58 points.
Food & drink. Marseille 67, New Orleans 84: New Orleans leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Marseille 63, New Orleans 67: New Orleans leads by 4 points.
Nightlife. Marseille 57, New Orleans 85: New Orleans leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Marseille 83, New Orleans 42: Marseille leads by 41 points.
Day trips. Marseille 86, New Orleans 52: Marseille leads by 34 points.
Good for families. Marseille 50, New Orleans 55: New Orleans leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Marseille 57, New Orleans 55: Marseille leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Marseille 47, New Orleans 54: New Orleans leads by 7 points.
Affordability. Marseille 45, New Orleans 40: Marseille leads by 5 points.
Live music & performing arts. Marseille 56, New Orleans 80: New Orleans leads by 24 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Marseille 37, New Orleans 25: Marseille leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Marseille and New Orleans.

Your match

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

Marseille
Best match
60match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

New Orleans
54match

Wins on nightlife and live music and the arts with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Marseille in July

31 °Cdaytime high
20 °Cnight-time low
11 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
21 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

New Orleans in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
169 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
MarseilleNew Orleans

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Marseille: 1991-2020 normals, Marseille / Marignane (20.6 km from centre). New Orleans: 1991-2020 normals, New Orleans Airport (2.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMarseilleNew Orleans
Official languageFrench-
CurrencyEuro (EUR)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-6, UTC-5 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation0 m-2 m
Main airportMarseille Provence Airport (MRS)21 km from centre126 non-stop destinationsLouis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)18 km from centre51 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureMarseilleNew Orleans
City population886,040383,997
People per km²3,683423
Museums within 10 km2716
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C2 months7 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Marseille or New Orleans 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). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.