VacationSelector
Portofino and its bay from the hillside, Portofino
PortofinoPortofino and its bay from the hillside
Hanok houses in Bukchon, Seoul
SeoulHanok houses in Bukchon

Photos: Portofino by Michal Osmenda, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Seoul by 거열 박, Pexels License.

Portofino 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 Portofino for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Seoul for

  • nightlife
  • shopping
  • live music and the arts

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. Portofino 60, Seoul 18: Portofino leads by 42 points.
Food & drink. Portofino 36, Seoul 84: Seoul leads by 48 points.
Culture & sights. Portofino 22, Seoul 75: Seoul leads by 53 points.
Nightlife. Portofino 14, Seoul 84: Seoul leads by 70 points.
Nature & outdoors. Portofino 77, Seoul 75: Portofino leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Portofino 76, Seoul 77: Seoul leads by 1 points.
Good for families. Portofino 33, Seoul 80: Seoul leads by 47 points.
Getting around. Portofino 50, Seoul 87: Seoul leads by 37 points.
Shopping & style. Portofino 29, Seoul 85: Seoul leads by 56 points.
Affordability. Portofino 9, Seoul 50: Seoul leads by 41 points.
Live music & performing arts. Portofino 7, Seoul 63: Seoul leads by 56 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Portofino 42, Seoul 75: Seoul leads by 33 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Portofino and Seoul.

Your match

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

Portofino
38match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Seoul
Best match
71match

Wins on nightlife and shopping with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Portofino in July

27 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
32 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
24 °Csea
15 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
PortofinoSeoul

Where the figures come from

Portofino's temperatures are measured 31 km from the centre, at Genova / Sestri.

Portofino 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.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Portofino: 1991-2020 normals, Genova / Sestri (31 km from centre). Seoul: 1991-2020 normals, Seoul (2.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePortofinoSeoul
Official languageItalianKorean, Korean Sign Language
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Won (KRW)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzCF220 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+9
Emergency number112Police 112, ambulance 119, fire 119
Elevation20 m38 m
Main airportGenoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport (GOA)32 km from centre25 non-stop destinationsIncheon International Airport (ICN)49 km from centre162 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days18 days

By the numbers

MeasurePortofinoSeoul
City population3559,668,465
People per km²14215,973
Museums within 10 km1481
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km25
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months2 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Portofino or Seoul somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national 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). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.