VacationSelector
Waterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor, Newport Beach
Newport BeachWaterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor
Hanok houses in Bukchon, Seoul
SeoulHanok houses in Bukchon

Photos: Newport Beach by Don Ramey Logan, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Seoul by 거열 박, Pexels License.

Newport Beach or Seoul?

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 Newport Beach for

  • beaches

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

Choose Seoul for

  • getting around
  • culture and sights
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Seoul’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. Newport Beach 70, Seoul 18: Newport Beach leads by 52 points.
Food & drink. Newport Beach 50, Seoul 84: Seoul leads by 34 points.
Culture & sights. Newport Beach 20, Seoul 75: Seoul leads by 55 points.
Nightlife. Newport Beach 33, Seoul 84: Seoul leads by 51 points.
Nature & outdoors. Newport Beach 66, Seoul 75: Seoul leads by 9 points.
Day trips. Newport Beach 70, Seoul 77: Seoul leads by 7 points.
Good for families. Newport Beach and Seoul are level on 80.
Getting around. Newport Beach 20, Seoul 87: Seoul leads by 67 points.
Shopping & style. Newport Beach 62, Seoul 85: Seoul leads by 23 points.
Affordability. Newport Beach 15, Seoul 50: Seoul leads by 35 points.
Live music & performing arts. Newport Beach 46, Seoul 63: Seoul leads by 17 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Newport Beach 44, Seoul 75: Seoul leads by 31 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Newport Beach and Seoul.

Your match

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

Newport Beach
48match

Wins on beaches with your weighting.

Seoul
Best match
71match

Wins on getting around and culture and sights with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Newport Beach in July

26 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Seoul in July

29 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
422 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
21 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400500JFMAMJJASOND
Newport BeachSeoul

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Newport Beach: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1981-2010) normals, Santa Ana / Paularino (7.1 km from centre). Seoul: 1991-2020 normals, Seoul (2.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureNewport BeachSeoul
Official language-Korean, Korean Sign Language
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Won (KRW)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCF220 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC+9
Emergency number911Police 112, ambulance 119, fire 119
Elevation3 m38 m
Main airportJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)7 km from centre53 non-stop destinationsIncheon International Airport (ICN)49 km from centre162 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days18 days

By the numbers

MeasureNewport BeachSeoul
City population85,2399,668,465
People per km²62215,973
Museums within 10 km481
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km05
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone2 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Newport Beach or Seoul 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. 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.