VacationSelector

United Kingdom

Edinburgh

Match

58

  • Beach first56
  • Culture first59
  • Food & nightlife61
  • Family trip57
  • Nature first52
  • Good weather54
  • On a budget57

The nine measures

Each scored 0 to 100 against fixed anchors, so a score means the same thing on every page. Open a row for the figures behind it.

Beaches & swimming. Scores 55 out of 100.55
Score55
Swim season months0
Beaches 10 km20
Coast distance3 km
Water distance3 km

Sea reaches 21 °C or more in 0 months, 20 beaches lie within 10 km, and the water is 3 km away.

Places to eat. Scores 70 out of 100.70
Score70
Restaurants within 2 km of centre1,023
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km35

1023 restaurants within 2 km of the centre, spread across an effective 35 kitchens.

Museums & heritage. Scores 57 out of 100.57
Score57
Museums within 10 km30
Museums within 2 km of centre22
Share of museums within 2 km %73
Unesco sites within 50 km3

30 museums mapped within 10 km, 73% of them within 2 km of the centre, and 3 whole UNESCO inscriptions within 50 km.

Nightlife. Scores 64 out of 100.64
Score64
Drinking venues within 4 km1,193
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre884
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %74
Nightclubs within 4 km65

1193 places to drink within 4 km, 65 nightclubs among them, and 74% of the drinking venues within 2 km of the centre.

Nature & day trips. Scores 35 out of 100.35
Score35
Protected land share 50 km %2
Landscape blanket share 50 km %1
Land share of disc %85
Park area within 2 km166 hectares

2% of the 50 km disc around the city is protected land, and there are 166 hectares of park within 2 km of the centre.

Good for families. Scores 72 out of 100.72
Score72
Tourist attractions within 2 km87
Park area within 2 km166 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km0

87 tourist attractions within 2 km beside 166 hectares of park, and 0 theme parks within 30 km.

Sights concentration. Scores 60 out of 100.60
Score60
Notable places within 2 km126
Min wikipedia languages5

126 notable places within 2 km of the centre, counting places with a Wikipedia presence in at least five languages.

Value for money. Scores 54 out of 100.54
Score54
Price level global84.9
Daily budget

National price level of 84.9 against the United States at 100, scored on a fixed scale from 20, the cheapest countries anyone travels to, to 160, the most expensive.

Year-round weather. Scores 51 out of 100.51
Score51
Monthly daytime high6.6 °C to 18.8 °C
Monthly rainfall43 mm to 80 mm
Dry months0

Daytime highs run 7-19 °C across the year, with 0 month(s) at 40 mm of rain or less.

0255075100

When should you go?

The figures behind each month, shaded against this city's own year: the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Edinburgh
7
7
9
12
14
17
19
19
17
13
9
7
Sea temperature, °C
Edinburgh
7
6
6
7
10
12
14
14
13
12
10
8
Rainfall, mm
Edinburgh
62
47
47
43
49
63
65
69
55
80
68
63
Daylight, hours per day
Edinburgh
8
10
12
14
16
18
17
15
13
11
8
7
Sunshine, hours per day
Edinburgh
2
3
4
5
6
5
5
5
4
3
3
2

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Edinburgh: 1991-2020 normals, Edinburgh Airport (10 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromEdinburgh
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
1 h 20 m
€41-45
EDI · 11 km
PalmaPMI
2 h 55 m
no fares
EDI · 11 km
ParisCDG, ORY, BVA
1 h 40 m
€78-108
1 stop
EDI · 11 km
MilanMXP, BGY, LIN
2 h 20 m
€75-101
1 stop
EDI · 11 km
KerkyraCFU
3 h 35 m
no fares
EDI · 11 km
BelfastBFS, BHD
55 m
no fares
EDI · 11 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
6 h 50 m
no fares
EDI · 11 km
CancunCUN
9 h 40 m
no fares
GLA · 78 km
MarrakechRAK
3 h 55 m
no fares
EDI · 11 km
ViennaVIE
2 h 35 m
€150-240
1 stop
EDI · 11 km

The busiest departure cities for Edinburgh, 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. 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. 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

MeasureEdinburgh
Official languageEnglish
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)
SocketsG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeft
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999
Elevation47 m
Main airportEdinburgh Airport (EDI)11 km from centre158 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days

By the numbers

MeasureEdinburgh
City population488,050
People per km²1,884
Museums within 10 km32
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km3
Distinct cuisines in the centre78
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone

Compare Edinburgh with

Every comparison with a written verdict behind it.

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). 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.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-09-01. Every destination we have measured.