VacationSelector
Pulteney Bridge and the weir on the Avon, Bath
BathPulteney Bridge and the weir on the Avon
Flinders Street Station, Melbourne
MelbourneFlinders Street Station

Photos: Bath by Lucas Carlini, Pexels License; Melbourne by Medelam, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Bath 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 Bath for

  • wellness
  • day trips
  • culture and sights

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

Choose Melbourne for

  • nightlife
  • beaches
  • food and drink

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. Bath 10, Melbourne 50: Melbourne leads by 40 points.
Food & drink. Bath 44, Melbourne 75: Melbourne leads by 31 points.
Culture & sights. Bath 68, Melbourne 57: Bath leads by 11 points.
Nightlife. Bath 30, Melbourne 75: Melbourne leads by 45 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bath 58, Melbourne 70: Melbourne leads by 12 points.
Day trips. Bath 80, Melbourne 62: Bath leads by 18 points.
Good for families. Bath 50, Melbourne 73: Melbourne leads by 23 points.
Getting around. Bath 72, Melbourne 76: Melbourne leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Bath 54, Melbourne 70: Melbourne leads by 16 points.
Affordability. Bath 27, Melbourne 31: Melbourne leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bath 44, Melbourne 72: Melbourne leads by 28 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bath 78, Melbourne 54: Bath leads by 24 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Bath
51match

Wins on wellness and day trips with your weighting.

Melbourne
Best match
64match

Wins on nightlife 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.

Bath in July

21 °Cdaytime high
12 °Cnight-time low
62 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
18 °Csea
16 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°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
BathMelbourne

Where the figures come from

Bath's temperatures are measured 29 km from the centre, at Lyneham.

Bath has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Bath: 1991-2020 normals, Lyneham (29.2 km from centre). Melbourne: 1991-2020 normals, Latrobe University / Kingsbury (13.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBathMelbourne
Official languageEnglishEnglish
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Australian Dollar (AUD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+10, UTC+11 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999000
Elevation132 m31 m
Main airportBristol Airport (BRS)25 km from centre117 non-stop destinationsMelbourne Airport (MEL)19 km from centre69 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureBathMelbourne
City population94,0925,350,705
People per km²3,245535
Museums within 10 km1743
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Swim season, months above 21 °CNoneNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bath 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). 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. 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.