VacationSelector
The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, Muscat
MuscatThe Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque
The steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi, New Orleans
New OrleansThe steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi

Photos: Muscat by Alli Khalil, CC BY 4.0, cropped; New Orleans by Bernard Spragg, CC0.

Muscat 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 Muscat for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose New Orleans for

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

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. Muscat 72, New Orleans 14: Muscat leads by 58 points.
Food & drink. Muscat 44, New Orleans 84: New Orleans leads by 40 points.
Culture & sights. Muscat 55, New Orleans 67: New Orleans leads by 12 points.
Nightlife. Muscat 14, New Orleans 85: New Orleans leads by 71 points.
Nature & outdoors. Muscat 70, New Orleans 42: Muscat leads by 28 points.
Day trips. Muscat 62, New Orleans 52: Muscat leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Muscat 52, New Orleans 55: New Orleans leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Muscat 20, New Orleans 55: New Orleans leads by 35 points.
Shopping & style. Muscat 42, New Orleans 54: New Orleans leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Muscat 45, New Orleans 40: Muscat leads by 5 points.
Live music & performing arts. Muscat 40, New Orleans 80: New Orleans leads by 40 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Muscat 55, New Orleans 25: Muscat leads by 30 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Muscat and New Orleans.

Your match

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

Muscat
48match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

New Orleans
Best match
54match

Wins on nightlife and food and drink with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Muscat in July

33 °Cdaytime high
30 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
31 °Csea
13 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
MuscatNew Orleans

Where the figures come from

Muscat's sunshine is measured 32 km from the centre, at Seeb, International Airport.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Muscat: 1991-2020 normals, Qaboos Port (3.4 km from centre). New Orleans: 1991-2020 normals, New Orleans Airport (2.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMuscatNew Orleans
Official languageArabic-
CurrencyRial Omani (OMR)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCG240 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+4UTC-6, UTC-5 in summer
Emergency number968911
Elevation69 m-2 m
Main airportMuscat International Airport (MCT)31 km from centre83 non-stop destinationsLouis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)18 km from centre51 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-14 days

By the numbers

MeasureMuscatNew Orleans
City population1,421,409383,997
People per km²406423
Museums within 10 km1016
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months7 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Muscat 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). 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. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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.