VacationSelector
Parliament Hill across the Ottawa River, Ottawa
OttawaParliament Hill across the Ottawa River
Elizabeth Quay and the centre of Perth, Perth
PerthElizabeth Quay and the centre of Perth

Photos: Ottawa by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Perth by Samuel Wiki, CC BY 4.0, cropped.

Ottawa or Perth?

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 Ottawa for

  • culture and sights
  • wellness
  • prices

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

Choose Perth for

  • beaches
  • food and drink
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Perth’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. Ottawa 35, Perth 86: Perth leads by 51 points.
Food & drink. Ottawa 45, Perth 58: Perth leads by 13 points.
Culture & sights. Ottawa 62, Perth 42: Ottawa leads by 20 points.
Nightlife. Ottawa 35, Perth 42: Perth leads by 7 points.
Nature & outdoors. Ottawa 68, Perth 72: Perth leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Ottawa 55, Perth 48: Ottawa leads by 7 points.
Good for families. Ottawa 68, Perth 74: Perth leads by 6 points.
Getting around. Ottawa 62, Perth 55: Ottawa leads by 7 points.
Shopping & style. Ottawa 40, Perth 44: Perth leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Ottawa 40, Perth 28: Ottawa leads by 12 points.
Live music & performing arts. Ottawa 52, Perth 50: Ottawa leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Ottawa 55, Perth 38: Ottawa leads by 17 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Ottawa and Perth.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Ottawa
51match

Wins on culture and sights and wellness with your weighting.

Perth
53match

Wins on beaches and food and drink with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Ottawa in July

27 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
82 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Perth in July

19 °Cdaytime high
8 °Cnight-time low
145 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
20 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
OttawaPerth

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Ottawa: 1991-2020 normals, Ottawa CDA RCS (5.3 km from centre). Perth: 1991-2020 normals, Perth (7.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureOttawaPerth
Official languageFrench, EnglishEnglish
CurrencyCanadian Dollar (CAD)Australian Dollar (AUD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+8
Emergency number911000
Elevation70 m2 m
Main airportOttawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport (YOW)12 km from centre46 non-stop destinationsPerth International Airport (PER)10 km from centre49 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureOttawaPerth
City population1,017,4492,141,834
People per km²366334
Museums within 10 km2015
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C-5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Ottawa or Perth 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. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.