VacationSelector
The steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi, New Orleans
New OrleansThe steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi
The wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind, Queenstown
QueenstownThe wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind

Photos: New Orleans by Bernard Spragg, CC0; Queenstown by Robert Linsdell, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

New Orleans or Queenstown?

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

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • nightlife

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

Choose Queenstown for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Queenstown’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, Queenstown 20: Queenstown leads by 6 points.
Food & drink. New Orleans 84, Queenstown 45: New Orleans leads by 39 points.
Culture & sights. New Orleans 67, Queenstown 12: New Orleans leads by 55 points.
Nightlife. New Orleans 85, Queenstown 42: New Orleans leads by 43 points.
Nature & outdoors. New Orleans 42, Queenstown 97: Queenstown leads by 55 points.
Day trips. New Orleans 52, Queenstown 50: New Orleans leads by 2 points.
Good for families. New Orleans 55, Queenstown 60: Queenstown leads by 5 points.
Getting around. New Orleans 55, Queenstown 45: New Orleans leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. New Orleans 54, Queenstown 28: New Orleans leads by 26 points.
Affordability. New Orleans 40, Queenstown 20: New Orleans leads by 20 points.
Live music & performing arts. New Orleans 80, Queenstown 14: New Orleans leads by 66 points.
Wellness & relaxation. New Orleans 25, Queenstown 42: Queenstown leads by 17 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: New Orleans and Queenstown.

Your match

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

New Orleans
Best match
54match

Wins on live music and the arts and culture and sights with your weighting.

Queenstown
40match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and wellness 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
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Queenstown in July

6 °Cdaytime high
-1 °Cnight-time low
115 mmrain in the month
No seasea
9 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
New OrleansQueenstown

Where the figures come from

Queenstown has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. New Orleans: 1991-2020 normals, New Orleans Airport (2.7 km from centre). Queenstown: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureNew OrleansQueenstown
Official language-English, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6, UTC-5 in summerUTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency number911111
Elevation-2 m324 m
Main airportLouis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)18 km from centre51 non-stop destinationsQueenstown Airport (ZQN)7 km from centre7 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureNew OrleansQueenstown
City population383,99729,000
People per km²423-
Museums within 10 km160
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 Queenstown 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.