VacationSelector
Yellow colonial houses in the walled city, Cartagena
CartagenaYellow colonial houses in the walled city
Skiers at the foot of the slopes in the village, Copper Mountain
Copper MountainSkiers at the foot of the slopes in the village

Photos: Cartagena by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Copper Mountain by SparkFunElectronics, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Cartagena or Copper Mountain?

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 Cartagena for

  • beaches
  • culture and sights
  • nightlife

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

Choose Copper Mountain for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Copper Mountain’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. Cartagena 70, Copper Mountain 3: Cartagena leads by 67 points.
Food & drink. Cartagena 62, Copper Mountain 20: Cartagena leads by 42 points.
Culture & sights. Cartagena 68, Copper Mountain 4: Cartagena leads by 64 points.
Nightlife. Cartagena 70, Copper Mountain 12: Cartagena leads by 58 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cartagena 46, Copper Mountain 90: Copper Mountain leads by 44 points.
Day trips. Cartagena 33, Copper Mountain 55: Copper Mountain leads by 22 points.
Good for families. Cartagena 40, Copper Mountain 62: Copper Mountain leads by 22 points.
Getting around. Cartagena 54, Copper Mountain 48: Cartagena leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. Cartagena 48, Copper Mountain 8: Cartagena leads by 40 points.
Affordability. Cartagena 60, Copper Mountain 18: Cartagena leads by 42 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cartagena 40, Copper Mountain 8: Cartagena leads by 32 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cartagena 40, Copper Mountain 28: Cartagena leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cartagena and Copper Mountain.

Your match

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

Cartagena
Best match
53match

Wins on beaches and culture and sights with your weighting.

Copper Mountain
30match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and day trips with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Cartagena in July

31 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
124 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Copper Mountain in July

21 °Cdaytime high
5 °Cnight-time low
41 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
CartagenaCopper Mountain

Where the figures come from

Copper Mountain's temperatures are measured 35 km from the centre, at Leadville / Stringtown.

Copper Mountain 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. Cartagena: 1991-2020 normals, Cartagena / Rafael Nunez (3.1 km from centre). Copper Mountain: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Leadville / Stringtown (35.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCartagenaCopper Mountain
Official languageSpanish-
CurrencyColombian Peso (COP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number123911
Elevation2 m2,955 m
Main airportRafael Nuñez International Airport (CTG)2 km from centre26 non-stop destinationsDenver International Airport (DEN)132 km from centre231 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureCartagenaCopper Mountain
City population914,552650
People per km²1,5998
Museums within 10 km20
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cartagena or Copper Mountain 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). 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.