VacationSelector
Titanic Belfast, Belfast
BelfastTitanic Belfast
Botero sculptures on Plaza Botero, Medellin
MedellinBotero sculptures on Plaza Botero

Photos: Belfast by Nico Kaiser, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Medellin by Steffen Schmitz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Belfast or Medellin?

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 Belfast for

  • beaches
  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Medellin for

  • prices
  • nightlife
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Medellin’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. Belfast 20, Medellin 5: Belfast leads by 15 points.
Food & drink. Belfast 50, Medellin 58: Medellin leads by 8 points.
Culture & sights. Belfast 55, Medellin 42: Belfast leads by 13 points.
Nightlife. Belfast 50, Medellin 76: Medellin leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Belfast 74, Medellin 66: Belfast leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Belfast 66, Medellin 58: Belfast leads by 8 points.
Good for families. Belfast 58, Medellin 50: Belfast leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Belfast 62, Medellin 55: Belfast leads by 7 points.
Shopping & style. Belfast and Medellin are level on 45.
Affordability. Belfast 48, Medellin 80: Medellin leads by 32 points.
Live music & performing arts. Belfast 55, Medellin 42: Belfast leads by 13 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Belfast 25, Medellin 30: Medellin leads by 5 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Belfast
51match

Wins on beaches and culture and sights with your weighting.

Medellin
51match

Wins on prices and nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Belfast in July

19 °Cdaytime high
12 °Cnight-time low
74 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
12 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

Medellin in July

29 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
133 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
12 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
BelfastMedellin

Where the figures come from

Medellin 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. Belfast: 1991-2020 normals, Belfast / Aldergrove Airport (19.4 km from centre). Medellin: 1958-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Medellin / Olaya Herrera (5.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBelfastMedellin
Official languageEnglishSpanish
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Colombian Peso (COP)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB110 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number112 or 999123
Elevation3 m1,405 m
Main airportGeorge Best Belfast City Airport (BHD)4 km from centre25 non-stop destinationsJose Maria Córdova International Airport (MDE)19 km from centre41 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days19 days

By the numbers

MeasureBelfastMedellin
City population345,0062,529,403
People per km²3,0006,644
Museums within 10 km814
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Belfast or Medellin 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.