VacationSelector
Wat Pho, Bangkok
BangkokWat Pho
Flinders Street Station, Melbourne
MelbourneFlinders Street Station

Photos: Bangkok by Lu Zhao, Pexels License; Melbourne by Medelam, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Bangkok or Melbourne?

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 Bangkok for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • wellness

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

Choose Melbourne for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Melbourne’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. Bangkok 12, Melbourne 50: Melbourne leads by 38 points.
Food & drink. Bangkok 95, Melbourne 75: Bangkok leads by 20 points.
Culture & sights. Bangkok 80, Melbourne 57: Bangkok leads by 23 points.
Nightlife. Bangkok 85, Melbourne 75: Bangkok leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bangkok 25, Melbourne 70: Melbourne leads by 45 points.
Day trips. Bangkok 72, Melbourne 62: Bangkok leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Bangkok 50, Melbourne 73: Melbourne leads by 23 points.
Getting around. Bangkok 50, Melbourne 76: Melbourne leads by 26 points.
Shopping & style. Bangkok 80, Melbourne 70: Bangkok leads by 10 points.
Affordability. Bangkok 85, Melbourne 31: Bangkok leads by 54 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bangkok 52, Melbourne 72: Melbourne leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bangkok 75, Melbourne 54: Bangkok leads by 21 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bangkok and Melbourne.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Bangkok
63match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Melbourne
64match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and beaches with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Bangkok in July

34 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
184 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Melbourne in July

14 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
46 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
12 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
BangkokMelbourne

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Bangkok: 1991-2020 normals, Bangkok (5.7 km from centre). Melbourne: 1991-2020 normals, Latrobe University / Kingsbury (13.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBangkokMelbourne
Official languageThaiEnglish
CurrencyBaht (THB)Australian Dollar (AUD)
SocketsABCF220 V, 50 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+7UTC+10, UTC+11 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199000
Elevation2 m31 m
Main airportSuvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)26 km from centre150 non-stop destinationsMelbourne Airport (MEL)19 km from centre69 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-13 days

By the numbers

MeasureBangkokMelbourne
City population5,676,6485,350,705
People per km²3,619535
Museums within 10 km5943
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bangkok or Melbourne 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.