VacationSelector

Miami or Las Vegas?

Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Your match

Miami
✓ Best match
56
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and good for families with your weighting.

Las Vegas
45
match

Wins on sights concentration and nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

The verdict

Choose Las Vegas if you want a walkable centre with most of the drinking and the sights close together, and desert country beyond it, half of the surrounding land protected.

Choose Miami if the water is the point: 20 beaches within reach and sea warm enough to swim in every month, plus more park space by the centre and a wider range of kitchens.

Scoreboard

Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.

MiamiLas Vegas
Beaches & swimming. Miami leads by 95 points.95
MiamiLas Vegas
Score950
Swim season months120
Beaches 10 km200
Coast distance1 km372 km
Water distance1 km—
Places to eat. Miami leads by 3 points.3
MiamiLas Vegas
Score6562
Restaurants within 2 km of centre898915
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km2924
Museums & heritage. Miami leads by 4 points.4
MiamiLas Vegas
Score2319
Museums within 10 km2824
Museums within 2 km of centre64
Share of museums within 2 km %2117
Unesco sites within 50 km00
Nightlife. Las Vegas leads by 8 points.8
MiamiLas Vegas
Score5058
Drinking venues within 4 km538793
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre287485
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %5361
Nightclubs within 4 km6390
Nature & day trips. Miami leads by 9 points.9
MiamiLas Vegas
Score7263
Protected land share 50 km %1650
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %48100
Park area within 2 km50 hectares7 hectares
Good for families. Miami leads by 10 points.10
MiamiLas Vegas
Score4434
Tourist attractions within 2 km1419
Park area within 2 km50 hectares7 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km24
Sights concentration. Las Vegas leads by 9 points.9
MiamiLas Vegas
Score4251
Notable places within 2 km4575
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Miami and Las Vegas are level on 43.
MiamiLas Vegas
Score4343
Price level global100100
Daily budget——
Year-round weather. Miami leads by 2 points.2
MiamiLas Vegas
Score7472
Monthly daytime high24.7 °C to 32.7 °C13.9 °C to 40.3 °C
Monthly rainfall47 mm to 267 mm1 mm to 21 mm
Dry months012
0255075100

Where they differ

Las Vegas packs about twice as many notable places into walking distance of the centre as Miami, so days need less transport. It has somewhat more tourist attractions near the centre too, and 4 theme parks within reach against Miami's 2. Half the land around it is protected, against 16% around Miami.

Miami has 20 beaches nearby where Las Vegas has none, and sea above 21°C in every month. It also has many times as much park space near the centre and a wider range of kitchens.

Where they are alike

Both peak in July, Las Vegas at 40°C and Miami at 33°C, and both hold warmth across many months, so the heat rather than the cold is what shapes plans.

On food and history they are close too: a similar number of restaurants near the centre, Miami with a wider spread of kitchens, and both light on museums, with no UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach.

Which traveller are you?

If you plan your days around swimming, Miami is the only candidate: 20 beaches nearby and a sea that stays above 21°C in every month, warmest in August at 30°C.

For a night-out trip made on foot, take Las Vegas: more places to drink and more clubs than Miami, most of them near the centre, and about twice as many notable places within walking distance.

Families split. Las Vegas has more tourist attractions near the centre and 4 theme parks within reach against 2; Miami answers with far more park space by the centre, plus the beaches.

What the numbers don't tell you

The two share an identical value figure, but that comes from a national price level rather than from anything local, so it is the same for both by construction. This dataset carries no daily budget for either city, so no cost comparison between Las Vegas and Miami is possible here; treat the value comparison as carrying no information.

The weather picture is incomplete too: no sunshine figure exists for either, so that side is unmeasured and the monthly ratings rest on temperature, rain and sea alone. Miami's beach strength also peaks in its wettest stretch, 259mm in September, while Las Vegas's driest summer air comes with 40°C days.

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.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Miami
25
26
27
29
31
32
33
33
32
30
28
26
Las Vegas
15
17
22
26
32
38
40
39
35
27
20
14
Sea temperature, °C
Miami
25
25
25
26
27
28
29
30
29
28
27
26
Las Vegas
No coastline within reach
Rainfall, mm
Miami
47
55
63
85
157
267
186
242
259
193
90
62
Las Vegas
14
21
11
5
2
1
9
8
8
8
8
11
Daylight, hours per day
Miami
11
11
12
13
13
14
14
13
12
12
11
11
Las Vegas
10
11
12
13
14
15
14
14
12
11
10
10

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Miami: 1991-2020 normals, Miami International Airport (10 km from centre). Las Vegas: 1991-2020 normals, McCarran International Airport (8.5 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Las Vegas is at its best in April and October, when highs sit at 26-27°C and rain stays at 8mm or less. July is the month to avoid, at 40°C.

Miami works best from December to March, with highs of 25-27°C and rain of 47-63mm, and the sea stays warm all year. Summer is the weaker stretch, when downpours reach 267mm in a month and the heat is steady rather than extreme.

Getting there

Flying fromMiamiLas Vegas
Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY
5 h 5 m
no fares
MIA · 7 km
1 h 5 m
€76-164
LAS · 4 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
2 h 45 m
€205-247
MIA · 7 km
4 h 55 m
€242-269
LAS · 4 km
ChicagoORD, MDW, DPA, PWK +1
2 h 55 m
€143-193
MIA · 7 km
3 h 30 m
€171-225
LAS · 4 km
WashingtonIAD, DCA
2 h 25 m
€127-180
MIA · 7 km
4 h 35 m
€230-263
1 stop
LAS · 4 km
DallasDFW, DAL, AFW
2 h 45 m
€144-205
MIA · 7 km
2 h 40 m
€154-209
LAS · 4 km
HoustonIAH, HOU
2 h 30 m
€103-188
1 stop
MIA · 7 km
3 h 0 m
€166-315
1 stop
LAS · 4 km
SeattleSEA, BFI
5 h 50 m
€344-394
MIA · 7 km
2 h 20 m
€132-243
1 stop
LAS · 4 km
TorontoYYZ, YHM, YTZ
3 h 0 m
€202-362
MIA · 7 km
4 h 20 m
€261-438
1 stop
LAS · 4 km
Mexico CityMEX, NLU, TLC
3 h 5 m
€278-290
MIA · 7 km
3 h 30 m
no fares
LAS · 4 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
9 h 50 m
no fares
MIA · 7 km
11 h 15 m
no fares
LAS · 4 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

MeasureMiamiLas Vegas
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation2 m610 m
Main airportMiami International Airport (MIA)7 km from centre199 non-stop destinationsHarry Reid International Airport (LAS)4 km from centre159 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureMiamiLas Vegas
City population442,241641,903
People per km²3,0461,843
Museums within 10 km1721
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Distinct cuisines in the centre3949
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months–

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Miami or Las Vegas somewhere new.

Browse every destination we have measured

Sources

© OpenStreetMap contributors, data available under the Open Database Licence. Place counts include data from Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA Permissive 2.0), assembled from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and other providers. Notable-place counts from Wikidata (CC0), weighted by Wikipedia language editions. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-09-01. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.