VacationSelector
Place d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica, Montreal
MontrealPlace d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica
The top of the Mountaintop Express lift on Vail Mountain, Vail
VailThe top of the Mountaintop Express lift on Vail Mountain

Photos: Montreal by Arild Vågen, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Vail by DReifGalaxyM31, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Montreal or Vail?

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 Montreal for

  • culture and sights
  • nightlife
  • food and drink

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

Choose Vail for

  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Vail’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. Montreal 25, Vail 5: Montreal leads by 20 points.
Food & drink. Montreal 78, Vail 35: Montreal leads by 43 points.
Culture & sights. Montreal 60, Vail 10: Montreal leads by 50 points.
Nightlife. Montreal 75, Vail 30: Montreal leads by 45 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montreal 66, Vail 92: Vail leads by 26 points.
Day trips. Montreal 55, Vail 45: Montreal leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Montreal 68, Vail 55: Montreal leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Montreal 72, Vail 62: Montreal leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Montreal 60, Vail 35: Montreal leads by 25 points.
Affordability. Montreal 45, Vail 5: Montreal leads by 40 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montreal 76, Vail 42: Montreal leads by 34 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montreal 57, Vail 48: Montreal leads by 9 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montreal and Vail.

Your match

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

Montreal
Best match
61match

Wins on culture and sights and nightlife with your weighting.

Vail
39match

Wins on 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.

Montreal in July

27 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
98 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
15 hdaylight a day

Vail in July

29 °Cdaytime high
9 °Cnight-time low
35 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
MontrealVail

Where the figures come from

Vail's temperatures are measured 47 km from the centre, at Kremmling.

Vail's station stands 186 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Vail 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.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Montreal: 1991-2020 normals, Montreal McTavish (3.2 km from centre). Vail: 2006-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Kremmling (46.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMontrealVail
Official languageFrench, English-
CurrencyCanadian Dollar (CAD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation31 m2,445 m
Main airportMontreal / Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL)16 km from centre166 non-stop destinationsEagle County Regional Airport (EGE)48 km from centre16 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontrealVail
City population1,895,2114,835
People per km²3,806400
Museums within 10 km371
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Montreal or Vail 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). 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.

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.