VacationSelector
Yellow colonial houses in the walled city, Cartagena
CartagenaYellow colonial houses in the walled city
The wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind, Queenstown
QueenstownThe wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind

Photos: Cartagena by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Queenstown by Robert Linsdell, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Cartagena or Queenstown?

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

  • culture and sights
  • beaches
  • prices

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

Choose Queenstown for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • families
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Queenstown’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, Queenstown 20: Cartagena leads by 50 points.
Food & drink. Cartagena 62, Queenstown 45: Cartagena leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Cartagena 68, Queenstown 12: Cartagena leads by 56 points.
Nightlife. Cartagena 70, Queenstown 42: Cartagena leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cartagena 46, Queenstown 97: Queenstown leads by 51 points.
Day trips. Cartagena 33, Queenstown 50: Queenstown leads by 17 points.
Good for families. Cartagena 40, Queenstown 60: Queenstown leads by 20 points.
Getting around. Cartagena 54, Queenstown 45: Cartagena leads by 9 points.
Shopping & style. Cartagena 48, Queenstown 28: Cartagena leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Cartagena 60, Queenstown 20: Cartagena leads by 40 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cartagena 40, Queenstown 14: Cartagena leads by 26 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cartagena 40, Queenstown 42: Queenstown leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cartagena and Queenstown.

Your match

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

Cartagena
Best match
53match

Wins on culture and sights and beaches with your weighting.

Queenstown
40match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and families 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

Queenstown in July

6 °Cdaytime high
-1 °Cnight-time low
115 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
9 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
CartagenaQueenstown

Where the figures come from

Queenstown has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cartagena: 1991-2020 normals, Cartagena / Rafael Nunez (3.1 km from centre). Queenstown: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureCartagenaQueenstown
Official languageSpanishEnglish, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyColombian Peso (COP)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency number123111
Elevation2 m324 m
Main airportRafael Nuñez International Airport (CTG)2 km from centre26 non-stop destinationsQueenstown Airport (ZQN)7 km from centre7 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureCartagenaQueenstown
City population914,55229,000
People per km²1,599-
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 Queenstown 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.