VacationSelector
The wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind, Queenstown
QueenstownThe wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind
Minato Mirai and the Cosmo Clock, Yokohama
YokohamaMinato Mirai and the Cosmo Clock

Photos: Queenstown by Robert Linsdell, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Yokohama by Yoshio Kohara, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Queenstown or Yokohama?

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 Queenstown for

  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Yokohama for

  • culture and sights
  • getting around
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Yokohama’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. Queenstown 20, Yokohama 46: Yokohama leads by 26 points.
Food & drink. Queenstown 45, Yokohama 72: Yokohama leads by 27 points.
Culture & sights. Queenstown 12, Yokohama 55: Yokohama leads by 43 points.
Nightlife. Queenstown 42, Yokohama 44: Yokohama leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Queenstown 97, Yokohama 66: Queenstown leads by 31 points.
Day trips. Queenstown 50, Yokohama 86: Yokohama leads by 36 points.
Good for families. Queenstown 60, Yokohama 86: Yokohama leads by 26 points.
Getting around. Queenstown 45, Yokohama 87: Yokohama leads by 42 points.
Shopping & style. Queenstown 28, Yokohama 60: Yokohama leads by 32 points.
Affordability. Queenstown 20, Yokohama 55: Yokohama leads by 35 points.
Live music & performing arts. Queenstown 14, Yokohama 56: Yokohama leads by 42 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Queenstown 42, Yokohama 60: Yokohama leads by 18 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Queenstown and Yokohama.

Your match

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

Queenstown
40match

Wins on nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Yokohama
Best match
64match

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

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Queenstown in July

6 °Cdaytime high
-1 °Cnight-time low
115 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
9 hdaylight a day

Yokohama in July

28 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
145 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
24 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
QueenstownYokohama

Where the figures come from

Queenstown has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Yokohama's sunshine is measured 29 km from the centre, at Tokyo.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Queenstown: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km. Yokohama: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Yokohama (1.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureQueenstownYokohama
Official languageEnglish, New Zealand Sign Language, MāoriJapanese
CurrencyNew Zealand Dollar (NZD)Yen (JPY)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+12, UTC+13 in summerUTC+9
Emergency number111Police 110, fire 119
Elevation324 m24 m
Main airportQueenstown Airport (ZQN)7 km from centre7 non-stop destinationsTokyo Haneda International Airport (HND)18 km from centre98 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureQueenstownYokohama
City population29,0003,757,630
People per km²-8,585
Museums within 10 km038
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
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 Queenstown or Yokohama 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). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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.