VacationSelector
A purple lifeguard tower on South Beach, Miami Beach
Miami BeachA purple lifeguard tower on South Beach
The coloured houses stepping down to the sea, Positano
PositanoThe coloured houses stepping down to the sea

Photos: Miami Beach by Radomianin, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Positano by Bernard Gagnon, CC BY 4.0, cropped.

Miami Beach or Positano?

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 Miami Beach for

  • nightlife
  • live music and the arts
  • families

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

Choose Positano for

  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Positano’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. Miami Beach 92, Positano 77: Miami Beach leads by 15 points.
Food & drink. Miami Beach 62, Positano 40: Miami Beach leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Miami Beach 52, Positano 22: Miami Beach leads by 30 points.
Nightlife. Miami Beach 80, Positano 22: Miami Beach leads by 58 points.
Nature & outdoors. Miami Beach 52, Positano 80: Positano leads by 28 points.
Day trips. Miami Beach 55, Positano 88: Positano leads by 33 points.
Good for families. Miami Beach 60, Positano 28: Miami Beach leads by 32 points.
Getting around. Miami Beach 58, Positano 35: Miami Beach leads by 23 points.
Shopping & style. Miami Beach 55, Positano 45: Miami Beach leads by 10 points.
Affordability. Miami Beach 20, Positano 10: Miami Beach leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. Miami Beach 55, Positano 15: Miami Beach leads by 40 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Miami Beach 48, Positano 45: Miami Beach leads by 3 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Miami Beach and Positano.

Your match

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

Miami Beach
Best match
57match

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

Positano
42match

Wins on day trips 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.

Miami Beach in July

33 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
186 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Positano in July

29 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
27 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Miami BeachPositano

Where the figures come from

Positano's temperatures are measured 25 km from the centre, at Capri.

Positano 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.

Positano's sunshine is measured 59 km from the centre, at Grazzanise.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Miami Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Miami International Airport (18.8 km from centre). Positano: 2005-2025 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Capri (25.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMiami BeachPositano
Official language-Italian
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation1 m142 m
Main airportMiami International Airport (MIA)16 km from centre198 non-stop destinationsNaples International Airport (NAP)33 km from centre131 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureMiami BeachPositano
City population82,8903,729
People per km²2,109429
Museums within 10 km1410
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km05
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Miami Beach or Positano 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.