VacationSelector
Portofino and its bay from the hillside, Portofino
PortofinoPortofino and its bay from the hillside
The Bell Tower of Xi'an under a blue sky, Xi'an
Xi'anThe Bell Tower of Xi'an under a blue sky

Photos: Portofino by Michal Osmenda, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Xi'an by xiquinhosilva, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Portofino or Xi'an?

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
  • wellness

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

Choose Xi'an for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Xi'an’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, Xi'an 4: Portofino leads by 56 points.
Food & drink. Portofino 36, Xi'an 70: Xi'an leads by 34 points.
Culture & sights. Portofino 22, Xi'an 81: Xi'an leads by 59 points.
Nightlife. Portofino 14, Xi'an 42: Xi'an leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Portofino 77, Xi'an 62: Portofino leads by 15 points.
Day trips. Portofino 76, Xi'an 80: Xi'an leads by 4 points.
Good for families. Portofino 33, Xi'an 48: Xi'an leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Portofino 50, Xi'an 66: Xi'an leads by 16 points.
Shopping & style. Portofino 29, Xi'an 50: Xi'an leads by 21 points.
Affordability. Portofino 9, Xi'an 80: Xi'an leads by 71 points.
Live music & performing arts. Portofino 7, Xi'an 40: Xi'an leads by 33 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Portofino 42, Xi'an 40: Portofino leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Portofino and Xi'an.

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.

Xi'an
Best match
55match

Wins on prices 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.

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

Xi'an in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
96 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
PortofinoXi'an

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). Xi'an: 1991-2020 normals, Xi'An (4.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePortofinoXi'an
Official languageItalianPutonghua
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Yuan Renminbi (CNY)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzACI220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+8
Emergency number112Police 110, ambulance 120, fire 119
Elevation20 m405 m
Main airportGenoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport (GOA)32 km from centre25 non-stop destinationsXi'an Xianyang International Airport (XIY)26 km from centre178 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days6 days

By the numbers

MeasurePortofinoXi'an
City population35512,952,907
People per km²1421,283
Museums within 10 km149
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km22
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Portofino or Xi'an 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.