Almaty or Baku?

2,262 km apart, in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Each is scored month by month on the same ten years of climate readings, the public holidays that crowd it, and what the flight costs. This is where they part, and when.

• Almaty Kazakhstan · best Jun, Jul, Aug
• Baku Azerbaijan · best Apr, Jun, Jul

Month by month

Each cell is that destination's own verdict for the month — sweet spot, ok or avoid — with its typical daily high and its rainy days ("11d"). The pick goes to the better verdict; with the same verdict, to the higher score, unless the two are within a whisker of each other, when it is either. A month both would avoid is neither. A dot marks a busy month. Fares are the typical return from Bengaluru, in INR.

Before you go

• Cost of living — Almaty: very cheap, about 33% of the United States; Baku: very cheap, about 28% of the United States.
• Currency — Almaty: Kazakhstani tenge; Baku: Azerbaijani manat.
• Plugs — Almaty: type C and F, 220 V; Baku: type C and F, 220 V.
• Driving — Almaty: on the right; Baku: on the right.
• Travel advice — Almaty: no advice against travel; Baku: avoid all travel to parts, avoid all but essential travel to parts.

Facts from Wikidata (CC0), the UK Foreign Office (Open Government Licence) and the World Bank. The advisory is written for British travellers; entry rules depend on your passport.

Between them

2,262 km as the crow flies, about 3h 41m in the air.

The flight time is estimated from the distance. A road, train or bus is named only where it was measured — flights from AeroDataBox, roads from OpenRouteService, timetables via Transitous — and none of it is a fare; the searches on each destination's page are where prices live.

Also compared

• Almaty or Tashkent
• Almaty or Tbilisi
• Baku or Tashkent
• Baku or Tbilisi

Every verdict here is the destination's own: ten years of climate readings, the public holidays that crowd it, and what the flight costs. The comparison is the difference between two pages, not a third opinion.