VacationSelector
Castel Sant'Elmo and the Certosa di San Martino, Naples
NaplesCastel Sant'Elmo and the Certosa di San Martino
The beach and the oceanfront hotels from the fishing pier, Virginia Beach
Virginia BeachThe beach and the oceanfront hotels from the fishing pier

Photos: Naples by pietro scerrato, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Virginia Beach by SchuminWeb, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Naples or Virginia Beach?

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 Naples for

  • culture and sights
  • food and drink
  • day trips

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

Choose Virginia Beach for

  • families
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Virginia Beach’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. Naples 50, Virginia Beach 77: Virginia Beach leads by 27 points.
Food & drink. Naples 83, Virginia Beach 42: Naples leads by 41 points.
Culture & sights. Naples 87, Virginia Beach 30: Naples leads by 57 points.
Nightlife. Naples 60, Virginia Beach 37: Naples leads by 23 points.
Nature & outdoors. Naples 77, Virginia Beach 56: Naples leads by 21 points.
Day trips. Naples 96, Virginia Beach 64: Naples leads by 32 points.
Good for families. Naples 45, Virginia Beach 75: Virginia Beach leads by 30 points.
Getting around. Naples 54, Virginia Beach 27: Naples leads by 27 points.
Shopping & style. Naples 60, Virginia Beach 32: Naples leads by 28 points.
Affordability. Naples 63, Virginia Beach 40: Naples leads by 23 points.
Live music & performing arts. Naples 66, Virginia Beach 38: Naples leads by 28 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Naples 44, Virginia Beach 32: Naples leads by 12 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Naples and Virginia Beach.

Your match

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

Naples
Best match
65match

Wins on culture and sights and food and drink with your weighting.

Virginia Beach
46match

Wins on families and beaches with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Naples in July

30 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
23 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Virginia Beach in July

31 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
152 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
25 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
NaplesVirginia Beach

Where the figures come from

Naples 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.

Naples's sunshine is measured 28 km from the centre, at Grazzanise.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Naples: 2005-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Napoli / Capodichino (4.6 km from centre). Virginia Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Virginia Beach / Gatewood Park (5.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureNaplesVirginia Beach
Official languageItalian-
CurrencyEuro (EUR)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation17 m7 m
Main airportNaples International Airport (NAP)7 km from centre131 non-stop destinationsNorfolk International Airport (ORF)20 km from centre42 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureNaplesVirginia Beach
City population913,462459,470
People per km²7,676-
Museums within 10 km652
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km50
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 months4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Naples or Virginia Beach 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.