The Maldives or Mumbai?

1,658 km apart, in Maldives and India. 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.

• The Maldives Maldives · best Feb, Jun, Jul
• Mumbai India · best Jan, Feb, Mar

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 — The Maldives: cheap, about 51% of the United States; Mumbai: very cheap, about 23% of the United States.
• Currency — The Maldives: Maldivian rufiyaa; Mumbai: Indian rupee.
• Plugs — The Maldives: type A and C and G and K and L, 230 V; Mumbai: type C and D, 230 V.
• Driving — The Maldives: on the left; Mumbai: on the left.
• Travel advice — The Maldives: no advice against travel; Mumbai: avoid all 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

1,658 km as the crow flies, about 2h 56m in the air.Nonstop, about 1 a day · IndiGo.

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

• The Maldives or Ahmedabad
• The Maldives or The Andaman Islands
• The Maldives or Bengaluru
• The Maldives or Chennai
• The Maldives or Colombo
• The Maldives or Delhi
• The Maldives or Goa
• The Maldives or Hyderabad
• The Maldives or Jaipur
• The Maldives or Kathmandu
• The Maldives or Kochi
• The Maldives or Kolkata

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.