VacationSelector

Oslo or Tromso?

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

Your match

Oslo
✓ Best match
56
match

Wins on nature & day trips and nightlife with your weighting.

Tromso
27
match

Has no clear advantage with the weighting you have chosen.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

The verdict

Choose Oslo if you want a city trip: the wider choice of restaurants and bars, many more museums, and most of the notable places within walking distance of the centre, plus protected land and parks for days out.

Choose Tromso if the city itself matters less to you than the setting. It is far quieter on every urban count, with a short summer topping out at 16°C and the sea at the centre.

Scoreboard

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

OsloTromso
Beaches & swimming. Oslo leads by 8 points.8
OsloTromso
Score6052
Swim season months00
Beaches 10 km16314
Coast distance1 km0 km
Water distance1 km0 km
Places to eat. Oslo leads by 43 points.43
OsloTromso
Score6724
Restaurants within 2 km of centre85385
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km3416
Museums & heritage. Oslo leads by 25 points.25
OsloTromso
Score4823
Museums within 10 km7010
Museums within 2 km of centre378
Share of museums within 2 km %5380
Unesco sites within 50 km00
Nightlife. Oslo leads by 46 points.46
OsloTromso
Score537
Drinking venues within 4 km69567
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre56261
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %8191
Nightclubs within 4 km415
Nature & day trips. Oslo leads by 50 points.50
OsloTromso
Score6111
Protected land share 50 km %229
Landscape blanket share 50 km %19
Land share of disc %9465
Park area within 2 km88 hectares7 hectares
Good for families. Oslo leads by 34 points.34
OsloTromso
Score4814
Tourist attractions within 2 km139
Park area within 2 km88 hectares7 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km20
Sights concentration. Oslo leads by 41 points.41
OsloTromso
Score6928
Notable places within 2 km20720
Min wikipedia languages55
Value for money. Oslo and Tromso are level on 54.
OsloTromso
Score5454
Price level global85.185.1
Daily budget€203€203
Year-round weather. Oslo leads by 15 points.15
OsloTromso
Score4833
Monthly daytime high0.1 °C to 22.7 °C-1.1 °C to 16.3 °C
Monthly rainfall40 mm to 104 mm56 mm to 128 mm
Dry months00
0255075100

Where they differ

Oslo has many times as many restaurants near the centre and a wider range of kitchens, many times as many bars and clubs, and far more notable places within walking distance. Its surroundings are greener: 22% of the land around it is protected against 9% around Tromso, with far more park space near the centre and 2 theme parks within reach.

Tromso leads on none of these. It is smaller and quieter, its few museums sit tightly around the centre, and the sea starts at 0km from it against 1km in Oslo.

Where they are alike

Both sit on the water and both are cold for swimming. The sea reaches Tromso's centre and lies 1km from Oslo's, but neither gets a month above 21°C, so bathing is brief and bracing rather than a plan for the week.

They are closer on weather and heritage than on anything urban. Both run cool and damp, with no month at 40mm of rain or less, and neither has a UNESCO-listed place within day-trip reach.

Which traveller are you?

Someone after a food and drink weekend should take Oslo: many times as many restaurants near the centre as Tromso, a much wider range of kitchens, and many times as many bars and clubs, most of them close in.

Families are better served in Oslo as well, with somewhat more attractions near the centre, far more park space to walk between them, and 2 theme parks within reach where Tromso has none.

A traveller who wants a small, quiet coastal town with little urban programme will prefer Tromso: the sea at the centre, few places to eat or drink, and museums grouped tightly together. Summer tops out at 16°C.

What the numbers don't tell you

The value figure is a national price level, identical for both by construction, so it tells you nothing about which of these two costs less. Read the comparison as carrying no information. The daily budget of €203 sits beside both for the same reason: it is one national estimate, not a measurement of Oslo or of Tromso.

Oslo's 163 nearby beaches describe access rather than swimming. The sea tops out at 18°C in August, and August is also the wettest month at 104mm, so the warmest weeks are not the driest ones.

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
Oslo
0
1
5
11
17
20
23
21
16
10
4
1
Tromso
-1
-1
1
4
9
13
16
15
11
5
2
0
Sea temperature, °C
Oslo
4
3
3
6
11
15
18
18
15
12
9
6
Tromso
5
5
4
4
6
8
10
11
10
9
7
6
Rainfall, mm
Oslo
58
46
40
48
60
80
86
104
81
94
84
54
Tromso
108
95
97
71
56
57
73
90
110
128
94
110
Daylight, hours per day
Oslo
7
9
12
15
17
19
18
16
13
10
8
6
Tromso
2
7
12
16
22
24
24
18
14
9
4
0
Sunshine, hours per day
Oslo
2
3
5
6
8
8
8
7
5
3
2
1
Tromso
0
1
3
6
8
8
8
6
3
2
0
0

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Oslo: 1991-2020 normals, Oslo-Blindern (4.3 km from centre). Tromso: 1991-2020 normals, Tromso (0.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Oslo is the warmer summer: highs of 23°C in July and sea at 18°C by August. Rain builds through the season, from 60mm in May to 104mm in August, so earlier in the summer is drier. Winter days hover around 0-1°C.

Tromso's summer is cooler, 16°C at best, but its driest stretch falls in early summer at 56-57mm, well below the 128mm of October. Autumn and winter are wet throughout, which makes a visit a summer decision.

Getting there

Flying fromOsloTromso
CopenhagenCPH
1 h 15 m
€92-109
OSL · 37 km
2 h 35 m
no fares
TOS · 4 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
2 h 5 m
€46-96
OSL · 37 km
3 h 20 m
no fares
TOS · 4 km
HelsinkiHEL
1 h 35 m
€128-170
1 stop
OSL · 37 km
1 h 55 m
no fares
TOS · 4 km
StockholmARN, BMA, NYO, VST
1 h 5 m
€83-98
OSL · 37 km
2 h 0 m
no fares
TOS · 4 km
GdanskGDN
1 h 35 m
€31-38
OSL · 37 km
2 h 40 m
no fares
TOS · 4 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
2 h 15 m
€145-204
1 stop
OSL · 37 km
3 h 35 m
no fares
TOS · 4 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
2 h 0 m
€163-249
1 stop
OSL · 37 km
3 h 20 m
no fares
TOS · 4 km
ZurichZRH
2 h 20 m
no fares
OSL · 37 km
3 h 40 m
no fares
TOS · 4 km
BerlinBER
1 h 40 m
€101-168
1 stop
OSL · 37 km
2 h 55 m
no fares
TOS · 4 km
AmsterdamAMS
1 h 50 m
€162-207
OSL · 37 km
3 h 5 m
no fares
TOS · 4 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

MeasureOsloTromso
Official languageNorwegian, Nynorsk, Bokmål, SámiNorwegian, Nynorsk, Bokmål, Sámi
CurrencyNorwegian Krone (NOK)Norwegian Krone (NOK)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 112, ambulance 113, fire 110Police 112, ambulance 113, fire 110
Elevation23 m20 m
Main airportOslo-Gardermoen International Airport (OSL)37 km from centre58 non-stop destinationsTromsø Airport (TOS)4 km from centre45 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureOsloTromso
City population717,71079,943
People per km²–32
Museums within 10 km608
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Distinct cuisines in the centre7523
Swim season, months above 21 °CNoneNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Oslo or Tromso 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). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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 2026-08-31. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.