VacationSelector
Yellow colonial houses in the walled city, Cartagena
CartagenaYellow colonial houses in the walled city
The clock tower in the old town, Kotor
KotorThe clock tower in the old town

Photos: Cartagena by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Kotor by Muhammed Fatih Beki, Pexels License.

Cartagena or Kotor?

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

  • nightlife
  • shopping
  • food and drink

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

Choose Kotor for

  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Kotor’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, Kotor 57: Cartagena leads by 13 points.
Food & drink. Cartagena 62, Kotor 37: Cartagena leads by 25 points.
Culture & sights. Cartagena 68, Kotor 55: Cartagena leads by 13 points.
Nightlife. Cartagena 70, Kotor 30: Cartagena leads by 40 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cartagena 46, Kotor 80: Kotor leads by 34 points.
Day trips. Cartagena 33, Kotor 72: Kotor leads by 39 points.
Good for families. Cartagena 40, Kotor 36: Cartagena leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Cartagena 54, Kotor 48: Cartagena leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. Cartagena 48, Kotor 20: Cartagena leads by 28 points.
Affordability. Cartagena 60, Kotor 57: Cartagena leads by 3 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cartagena 40, Kotor 20: Cartagena leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cartagena 40, Kotor 24: Cartagena leads by 16 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Cartagena
Best match
53match

Wins on nightlife and shopping with your weighting.

Kotor
45match

Wins on day trips and nature and the outdoors 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

Kotor in July

31 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
39 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
CartagenaKotor

Where the figures come from

Kotor 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.

Kotor's sunshine is measured 42 km from the centre, at Podgorica-Grad.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cartagena: 1991-2020 normals, Cartagena / Rafael Nunez (3.1 km from centre). Kotor: 1991-2020 normals, Tivat (4.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCartagenaKotor
Official languageSpanishMontenegrin
CurrencyColombian Peso (COP)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number123112
Elevation2 m10 m
Main airportRafael Nuñez International Airport (CTG)2 km from centre26 non-stop destinationsTivat Airport (TIV)5 km from centre42 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days-

By the numbers

MeasureCartagenaKotor
City population914,552562
People per km²1,599-
Museums within 10 km23
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km13
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cartagena or Kotor 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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.