VacationSelector

New Orleans or Miami?

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

Your match

New Orleans
47
match

Wins on museums & heritage and nightlife with your weighting.

Miami
✓ Best match
56
match

Wins on beaches & swimming and nature & day trips 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 Miami if the sea matters: the water is 1km from the centre, warm enough for swimming in any month, and the protected land around the city gives more to do outdoors.

Choose New Orleans if you would rather spend days in museums near the centre and evenings out close by, and can accept a coast 17km away and winters with highs near 17°C.

Scoreboard

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

New OrleansMiami
Beaches & swimming. Miami leads by 56 points.56
New OrleansMiami
Score3995
Swim season months712
Beaches 10 km320
Coast distance21 km1 km
Water distance17 km1 km
Places to eat. Miami leads by 4 points.4
New OrleansMiami
Score6165
Restaurants within 2 km of centre803898
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km2529
Museums & heritage. New Orleans leads by 22 points.22
New OrleansMiami
Score4523
Museums within 10 km4228
Museums within 2 km of centre306
Share of museums within 2 km %7121
Unesco sites within 50 km00
Nightlife. New Orleans leads by 4 points.4
New OrleansMiami
Score5450
Drinking venues within 4 km704538
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre495287
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %7053
Nightclubs within 4 km4163
Nature & day trips. Miami leads by 47 points.47
New OrleansMiami
Score2572
Protected land share 50 km %416
Landscape blanket share 50 km %00
Land share of disc %8948
Park area within 2 km43 hectares50 hectares
Good for families. New Orleans leads by 2 points.2
New OrleansMiami
Score4644
Tourist attractions within 2 km2214
Park area within 2 km43 hectares50 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km12
Sights concentration. Miami leads by 2 points.2
New OrleansMiami
Score4042
Notable places within 2 km4045
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. New Orleans and Miami are level on 43.
New OrleansMiami
Score4343
Price level global100100
Daily budget——
Year-round weather. Miami leads by 6 points.6
New OrleansMiami
Score6874
Monthly daytime high17.1 °C to 33 °C24.7 °C to 32.7 °C
Monthly rainfall94 mm to 194 mm47 mm to 267 mm
Dry months00
0255075100

Where they differ

Miami has 20 beaches within reach against New Orleans's 3, and the sea starts 1km from the centre rather than 17km, warm enough to swim in every month of the year rather than seven. The countryside also works harder: 16% of the land around Miami is protected against 4%, with more park space near the centre.

New Orleans has about twice as many museums as Miami, and they sit tightly around the centre, so a day of heritage can be done on foot rather than driven.

Where they are alike

Both put a similar number of notable places within walking distance of the centre, so a first day can be spent on foot in either.

They are also close on eating, family days and going out. Restaurant counts near the centre are similar, though Miami's range of kitchens is wider. Miami has 2 theme parks within reach against New Orleans's 1 and more park space; New Orleans has more attractions and more places to drink near the centre.

Which traveller are you?

If swimming decides the trip, Miami: 20 beaches within reach, the sea 1km from the centre and warm enough to get in during any month, with more park space close by for the days between.

If you want museums and evenings out within walking distance, New Orleans: roughly twice as many museums as Miami, clustered near the centre, and more places to drink close in, with nightclubs mostly central too.

For families weighing outdoor days against indoor ones, Miami has 2 theme parks against New Orleans's 1 and far more protected land around it; New Orleans has about twice as many attractions near the centre.

What the numbers don't tell you

Treat the value comparison as empty. The figure behind it is a national price level, identical for both cities by construction, and the dataset carries no daily budget for either, so nothing here tells you which trip costs more. Any cost difference between them has to be checked elsewhere.

No weather station near either city records sunshine hours, so that figure is missing rather than low, and the monthly ratings rest on temperature, rainfall and sea temperature alone. Miami's beach strength also hides its wet season: the sea is warmest at 30°C in August, the month that also brings 242mm.

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
New Orleans
17
19
23
26
30
32
33
33
31
27
22
18
Miami
25
26
27
29
31
32
33
33
32
30
28
26
Sea temperature, °C
New Orleans
14
15
18
22
25
29
30
30
28
24
20
16
Miami
25
25
25
26
27
28
29
30
29
28
27
26
Rainfall, mm
New Orleans
132
104
111
132
143
194
169
180
128
94
98
123
Miami
47
55
63
85
157
267
186
242
259
193
90
62
Daylight, hours per day
New Orleans
10
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
12
11
10
Miami
11
11
12
13
13
14
14
13
12
12
11
11

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. New Orleans: 1991-2020 normals, New Orleans Airport (2.7 km from centre). Miami: 1991-2020 normals, Miami International Airport (10 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Miami is at its best from December to March, with highs of 25-27°C, a sea at 25°C and the year's lightest rain at 47-63mm a month. Summer is hotter but wet, with June the wettest at 267mm.

New Orleans is better in October, warm at 27°C and its driest month at 94mm, and again in April, though that brings 132mm. In January, highs of 17°C and a sea at 14°C rule out swimming, and no month there is dry.

Getting there

Flying fromNew OrleansMiami
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
2 h 55 m
€254-325
1 stop
MSY · 18 km
2 h 45 m
€205-247
MIA · 7 km
ChicagoORD, MDW, DPA, PWK +1
2 h 15 m
€208-268
1 stop
MSY · 18 km
2 h 55 m
€143-193
MIA · 7 km
WashingtonIAD, DCA
2 h 30 m
no fares
MSY · 18 km
2 h 25 m
€127-180
MIA · 7 km
DallasDFW, DAL, AFW
1 h 30 m
no fares
MSY · 18 km
2 h 45 m
€144-205
MIA · 7 km
HoustonIAH, HOU
1 h 15 m
no fares
MSY · 18 km
2 h 30 m
€103-188
1 stop
MIA · 7 km
AtlantaATL, PDK
1 h 30 m
€106-150
1 stop
MSY · 18 km
1 h 50 m
€97-175
MIA · 7 km
DenverDEN, APA
2 h 40 m
no fares
MSY · 18 km
3 h 55 m
no fares
MIA · 7 km
RaleighRDU
2 h 10 m
no fares
MSY · 18 km
2 h 0 m
€156-181
MIA · 7 km
CancunCUN
1 h 55 m
no fares
MSY · 18 km
1 h 40 m
no fares
MIA · 7 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
9 h 25 m
no fares
MSY · 18 km
9 h 0 m
€550-628
1 stop
MIA · 7 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

MeasureNew OrleansMiami
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6, UTC-5 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation-2 m2 m
Main airportLouis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)18 km from centre50 non-stop destinationsMiami International Airport (MIA)7 km from centre199 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureNew OrleansMiami
City population383,997442,241
People per km²4233,046
Museums within 10 km1617
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Distinct cuisines in the centre3939
Swim season, months above 21 °C7 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow New Orleans or Miami 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.