Rio de Janeiro or Vancouver?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on beaches & swimming and museums & heritage with your weighting.
Wins on places to eat and nature & day trips with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Rio de Janeiro leads by 40 points.40
| Rio de Janeiro | Vancouver | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 100 | 60 |
| Swim season months | 12 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 61 | 109 |
| Coast distance | 1 km | 1 km |
| Water distance | 1 km | 1 km |
Places to eat. Vancouver leads by 20 points.20
| Rio de Janeiro | Vancouver | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 74 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 804 | 1,330 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 16 | 35 |
Museums & heritage. Rio de Janeiro leads by 35 points.35
| Rio de Janeiro | Vancouver | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 69 | 34 |
| Museums within 10 km | 110 | 27 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 51 | 15 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 46 | 56 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 3 | 0 |
Nightlife. Rio de Janeiro and Vancouver are level on 57.
| Rio de Janeiro | Vancouver | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 57 | 57 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 818 | 848 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 509 | 602 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 62 | 71 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 50 | 44 |
Nature & day trips. Vancouver leads by 15 points.15
| Rio de Janeiro | Vancouver | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 62 | 77 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 21 | 19 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 17 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 57 | 60 |
| Park area within 2 km | 113 hectares | 103 hectares |
Good for families. Rio de Janeiro leads by 6 points.6
| Rio de Janeiro | Vancouver | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 59 | 53 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 30 | 15 |
| Park area within 2 km | 113 hectares | 103 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 1 | 3 |
Sights concentration. Rio de Janeiro leads by 8 points.8
| Rio de Janeiro | Vancouver | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 56 | 48 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 98 | 63 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Rio de Janeiro leads by 27 points.27
| Rio de Janeiro | Vancouver | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 81 | 54 |
| Price level global | 46.1 | 84 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Rio de Janeiro leads by 32 points.32
| Rio de Janeiro | Vancouver | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 85 | 53 |
| Monthly daytime high | 24 °C to 28.4 °C | 7.3 °C to 23 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 42 mm to 232 mm | 42 mm to 245 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 0 |
When should you go?
The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Rio de Janeiro: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Vancouver: 1991-2020 normals, Vancouver Harbour CS (4.4 km from centre).
Getting there
| Flying from | Rio de Janeiro | Vancouver |
|---|---|---|
| TorontoYYZ, YHM, YTZ | 10 h 25 m no fares GIG · 12 km | 4 h 35 m €210-223 1 stop YVR · 9 km |
| New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA | 9 h 45 m €609-699 2 stops GIG · 12 km | 5 h 15 m €353-356 YVR · 9 km |
| MontrealYUL, YHU, YMX | 10 h 20 m no fares GIG · 12 km | 5 h 0 m €219-262 2 stops YVR · 9 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 11 h 55 m €915-1205 2 stops GIG · 12 km | 10 h 10 m €743-810 1 stop YVR · 9 km |
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 11 h 35 m €996-1109 2 stops GIG · 12 km | 9 h 35 m no fares YVR · 9 km |
| AtlantaATL, PDK | 9 h 40 m no fares GIG · 12 km | 4 h 55 m no fares YVR · 9 km |
| MiamiMIA, OPF | 8 h 35 m no fares GIG · 12 km | 6 h 0 m no fares YVR · 9 km |
| HoustonIAH, HOU | 10 h 10 m no fares GIG · 12 km | 4 h 25 m no fares YVR · 9 km |
| ParisCDG, ORY, BVA | 11 h 30 m €957-1014 2 stops GIG · 12 km | 10 h 0 m no fares YVR · 9 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 11 h 55 m €900-974 1 stop GIG · 12 km | 9 h 45 m no fares YVR · 9 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 2026-09 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
| Measure | Rio de Janeiro | Vancouver |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Portuguese | French, English |
| Currency | Brazilian Real (BRL) | Canadian Dollar (CAD) |
| Sockets | CN60 Hz | AB120 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC-3 | UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer |
| Emergency number | Police 190, ambulance 192, fire 193 | 911 |
| Elevation | 31 m | 2 m |
| Main airport | Rio de Janeiro Galeão – Tom Jobim International Airport (GIG)12 km from centre59 non-stop destinations | Vancouver International Airport (YVR)9 km from centre99 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 14 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Rio de Janeiro | Vancouver |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 6,211,223 | 662,248 |
| People per km² | 4,930 | 5,759 |
| Museums within 10 km | 70 | 26 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 3 | 0 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 27 | 85 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 12 months | None |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Rio de Janeiro or Vancouver somewhere new.