VacationSelector

Rio de Janeiro or Ubud?

Two destinations compared in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Sugarloaf Mountain above the boats in Botafogo Bay, Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro

Photo: Arne Müseler, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, cropped

Rice terraces and palms at Tegallalang, Ubud
Ubud

Photo: Pinterpandai, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped

Your match

Rio de Janeiro
✓ Best match
62
match

Wins on nightlife and beaches with your weighting.

Ubud
54
match

Wins on wellness and prices with your weighting.

What matters to you?

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

Scoreboard

Our verdict on each category, scored 0 to 100 against fixed benchmark cities.

Rio de JaneiroUbud
Beaches & swimming. Rio de Janeiro leads by 52 points.52
Food & drink. Rio de Janeiro leads by 7 points.7
Culture & sights. Rio de Janeiro leads by 10 points.10
Nightlife. Rio de Janeiro leads by 66 points.66
Nature & outdoors. Rio de Janeiro leads by 14 points.14
Day trips. Ubud leads by 18 points.18
Good for families. Rio de Janeiro leads by 6 points.6
Getting around. Rio de Janeiro leads by 34 points.34
Shopping & style. Rio de Janeiro and Ubud are level on 50.
Affordability. Ubud leads by 22 points.22
Live music & performing arts. Rio de Janeiro leads by 11 points.11
Wellness & relaxation. Ubud leads by 66 points.66
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Rio de Janeiro and Ubud.

When should you go?

Pick the month you can travel and see both cities side by side. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Climate figures for July
JulyRio de JaneiroUbud
Daytime high24 °C29 °C
Night-time low18 °C24 °C
Rainfall in the month45 mm27 mm
SunshineNo figure9 hours a day
Sea temperature22 °C27 °C
Daylight11 hours a day12 hours a day

The whole year

Each row is shaded against that destination’s own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that figure 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
Rio de Janeiro
28
28
28
27
25
24
24
25
25
26
26
27
Ubud
31
31
31
31
31
30
29
29
30
31
32
31
Sea temperature, °C
Rio de Janeiro
25
25
25
25
24
23
22
21
21
22
23
24
Ubud
29
29
29
29
28
28
27
26
27
27
28
29
Rainfall, mm
Rio de Janeiro
208
151
173
101
71
49
45
42
69
108
220
232
Ubud
396
289
222
125
76
38
27
12
30
74
132
295
Daylight, hours per day
Rio de Janeiro
13
13
12
12
11
11
11
11
12
13
13
14
Ubud
13
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
13
13
Sunshine, hours per day
Rio de Janeiro
No sunshine record
Ubud
7
6
7
8
9
8
9
9
9
9
8
6

Where the figures come from

Rio de Janeiro 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.

Ubud's temperatures are measured 29 km from the centre, at Denpasar / Ngurah-Rai.

Ubud's station stands 209 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Rio de Janeiro: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Ubud: 1991-2020 normals, Denpasar / Ngurah-Rai (29 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromRio de JaneiroUbud
DubaiDXB, DWC
14 h 40 m
€1,154-1306
GIG · 12 km
9 h 30 m
€461-573
1 stop
DPS · 29 km
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
11 h 55 m
€915-1205
2 stops
GIG · 12 km
14 h 45 m
€655-1139
1 stop
DPS · 29 km
AmsterdamAMS
11 h 55 m
€900-974
1 stop
GIG · 12 km
15 h 0 m
€615-646
DPS · 29 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

MeasureRio de JaneiroUbud
Official languagePortugueseIndonesian
CurrencyBrazilian Real (BRL)Rupiah (IDR)
SocketsCN60 HzCF50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-3UTC+8
Emergency numberPolice 190, ambulance 192, fire 193112
Elevation31 m210 m
Main airportRio de Janeiro Galeão – Tom Jobim International Airport (GIG)12 km from centre54 non-stop destinationsDenpasar I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport (DPS)29 km from centre63 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days-

By the numbers

MeasureRio de JaneiroUbud
City population6,211,223-
People per km²4,930-
Museums within 10 km7014
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km31
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Rio de Janeiro or Ubud somewhere new.

Browse every destination

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. 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). 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.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate and flight figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-27. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.