VacationSelector
The steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi, New Orleans
New OrleansThe steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi
The Dzhumaya Mosque, Plovdiv
PlovdivThe Dzhumaya Mosque

Photos: New Orleans by Bernard Spragg, CC0; Plovdiv by Ad Meskens, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

New Orleans or Plovdiv?

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 New Orleans for

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

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

Choose Plovdiv for

  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Plovdiv’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. New Orleans 14, Plovdiv 7: New Orleans leads by 7 points.
Food & drink. New Orleans 84, Plovdiv 50: New Orleans leads by 34 points.
Culture & sights. New Orleans 67, Plovdiv 66: New Orleans leads by 1 points.
Nightlife. New Orleans 85, Plovdiv 42: New Orleans leads by 43 points.
Nature & outdoors. New Orleans 42, Plovdiv 68: Plovdiv leads by 26 points.
Day trips. New Orleans 52, Plovdiv 70: Plovdiv leads by 18 points.
Good for families. New Orleans 55, Plovdiv 40: New Orleans leads by 15 points.
Getting around. New Orleans 55, Plovdiv 65: Plovdiv leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. New Orleans 54, Plovdiv 33: New Orleans leads by 21 points.
Affordability. New Orleans 40, Plovdiv 78: Plovdiv leads by 38 points.
Live music & performing arts. New Orleans 80, Plovdiv 42: New Orleans leads by 38 points.
Wellness & relaxation. New Orleans 25, Plovdiv 44: Plovdiv leads by 19 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: New Orleans and Plovdiv.

Your match

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

New Orleans
Best match
54match

Wins on nightlife and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Plovdiv
50match

Wins on prices and 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.

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

Plovdiv in July

31 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
44 mmrain in the month
10 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
New OrleansPlovdiv

Where the figures come from

Plovdiv 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.

Plovdiv's sunshine is measured 75 km from the centre, at Kurdjali.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. New Orleans: 1991-2020 normals, New Orleans Airport (2.7 km from centre). Plovdiv: 1997-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Plovdiv (1.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureNew OrleansPlovdiv
Official language-Bulgarian
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6, UTC-5 in summerUTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation-2 m172 m
Main airportLouis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)18 km from centre51 non-stop destinationsPlovdiv International Airport (PDV)12 km from centre8 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureNew OrleansPlovdiv
City population383,997333,994
People per km²4233,274
Museums within 10 km1618
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C7 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow New Orleans or Plovdiv 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). 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.