VacationSelector

Varanasi or Zurich?

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

Rowing boats below the ghats in the morning light, Varanasi
Varanasi

Photo: Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped

The Limmat from Quaibrücke, Zurich
Zurich

Photo: Daniel Kraft, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped

Your match

Varanasi
40
match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Zurich
✓ Best match
63
match

Wins on families and getting around 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.

VaranasiZurich
Beaches & swimming. Zurich leads by 41 points.41
Food & drink. Varanasi leads by 2 points.2
Culture & sights. Varanasi leads by 22 points.22
Nightlife. Zurich leads by 52 points.52
Nature & outdoors. Zurich leads by 62 points.62
Day trips. Zurich leads by 42 points.42
Good for families. Zurich leads by 71 points.71
Getting around. Zurich leads by 67 points.67
Shopping & style. Zurich leads by 11 points.11
Affordability. Varanasi leads by 89 points.89
Live music & performing arts. Zurich leads by 12 points.12
Wellness & relaxation. Zurich leads by 28 points.28
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Varanasi and Zurich.

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
JulyVaranasiZurich
Daytime high35 °C24 °C
Night-time low27 °C15 °C
Rainfall in the month249 mm126 mm
SunshineNo figure7 hours a day
Daylight14 hours a day16 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
Varanasi
24
29
35
41
43
41
35
33
32
32
28
24
Zurich
4
5
10
15
19
22
24
24
19
14
8
4
Rainfall, mm
Varanasi
12
14
10
11
23
110
249
200
146
34
2
5
Zurich
62
60
71
80
126
128
126
119
87
85
76
84
Daylight, hours per day
Varanasi
11
11
12
13
13
14
14
13
12
12
11
11
Zurich
9
10
12
14
15
16
16
14
13
11
9
9
Sunshine, hours per day
Varanasi
No sunshine record
Zurich
2
3
5
6
6
7
7
7
5
3
2
1

Where the figures come from

Varanasi 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.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Varanasi: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Zurich: 1991-2020 normals, Zurich Town / Ville. (2.2 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromVaranasiZurich
MumbaiBOM, NMI
2 h 10 m
€147-164
VNS · 21 km
8 h 20 m
no fares
ZRH · 9 km
New DelhiDEL
1 h 25 m
€121-127
VNS · 21 km
7 h 55 m
no fares
ZRH · 9 km
BangkokBKK, DMK
3 h 20 m
€433-468
1 stop
VNS · 21 km
11 h 20 m
no fares
ZRH · 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 2026-10 to 2026-12, 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

MeasureVaranasiZurich
Official languageHindi, EnglishFrench, German, Italian, Romansh
CurrencyIndian Rupee (INR)Swiss Franc (CHF)
SocketsCM230 V, 50 HzCJ230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+5:30UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number108 or 112112
Elevation76 m408 m
Main airportLal Bahadur Shastri International Airport (VNS)21 km from centre16 non-stop destinationsZürich Airport (ZRH)9 km from centre226 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-10 days

By the numbers

MeasureVaranasiZurich
City population1,198,491452,421
People per km²14,5985,147
Museums within 10 km263
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Varanasi or Zurich 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. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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.