VacationSelector
The old railway depot in the snow, Steamboat Springs
Steamboat SpringsThe old railway depot in the snow
The Arctic Cathedral, Tromso
TromsoThe Arctic Cathedral

Photos: Steamboat Springs by Jeffrey Beall, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Tromso by Moyan Brenn, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Steamboat Springs or Tromso?

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 Steamboat Springs for

  • wellness
  • families
  • shopping

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

Choose Tromso for

  • nightlife
  • getting around
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Tromso’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. Steamboat Springs 7, Tromso 8: Tromso leads by 1 points.
Food & drink. Steamboat Springs 30, Tromso 36: Tromso leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Steamboat Springs 14, Tromso 27: Tromso leads by 13 points.
Nightlife. Steamboat Springs 20, Tromso 38: Tromso leads by 18 points.
Nature & outdoors. Steamboat Springs 88, Tromso 92: Tromso leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Steamboat Springs 12, Tromso 14: Tromso leads by 2 points.
Good for families. Steamboat Springs 62, Tromso 45: Steamboat Springs leads by 17 points.
Getting around. Steamboat Springs 46, Tromso 60: Tromso leads by 14 points.
Shopping & style. Steamboat Springs 22, Tromso 15: Steamboat Springs leads by 7 points.
Affordability. Steamboat Springs 17, Tromso 11: Steamboat Springs leads by 6 points.
Live music & performing arts. Steamboat Springs 28, Tromso 32: Tromso leads by 4 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Steamboat Springs 70, Tromso 38: Steamboat Springs leads by 32 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Steamboat Springs and Tromso.

Your match

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

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Steamboat Springs
35match

Wins on wellness and families with your weighting.

Tromso
35match

Wins on nightlife 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.

Steamboat Springs in July

28 °Cdaytime high
10 °Cnight-time low
31 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Tromso in July

16 °Cdaytime high
9 °Cnight-time low
73 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
10 °Csea
24 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
Steamboat SpringsTromso

Where the figures come from

Steamboat Springs 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. Steamboat Springs: 2011-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Steamboat Springs / Steamboat Ii (5.5 km from centre). Tromso: 1991-2020 normals, Tromso (0.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureSteamboat SpringsTromso
Official language-Norwegian, Nynorsk, Bokmål, Sámi
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Norwegian Krone (NOK)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-7, UTC-6 in summerUTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911Police 112, ambulance 113, fire 110
Elevation2,052 m20 m
Main airportYampa Valley Airport (HDN)33 km from centre17 non-stop destinationsTromsø Airport (TOS)4 km from centre49 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureSteamboat SpringsTromso
City population13,22479,943
People per km²50332
Museums within 10 km08
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C-None

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Steamboat Springs or Tromso somewhere new.

Browse every destination

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. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.