VacationSelector
Yellow colonial houses in the walled city, Cartagena
CartagenaYellow colonial houses in the walled city
The top of the Mountaintop Express lift on Vail Mountain, Vail
VailThe top of the Mountaintop Express lift on Vail Mountain

Photos: Cartagena by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Vail by DReifGalaxyM31, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Cartagena or Vail?

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
  • prices

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

Choose Vail for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • families
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Vail’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, Vail 5: Cartagena leads by 65 points.
Food & drink. Cartagena 62, Vail 35: Cartagena leads by 27 points.
Culture & sights. Cartagena 68, Vail 10: Cartagena leads by 58 points.
Nightlife. Cartagena 70, Vail 30: Cartagena leads by 40 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cartagena 46, Vail 92: Vail leads by 46 points.
Day trips. Cartagena 33, Vail 45: Vail leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Cartagena 40, Vail 55: Vail leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Cartagena 54, Vail 62: Vail leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Cartagena 48, Vail 35: Cartagena leads by 13 points.
Affordability. Cartagena 60, Vail 5: Cartagena leads by 55 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cartagena 40, Vail 42: Vail leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cartagena 40, Vail 48: Vail leads by 8 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cartagena and Vail.

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.

Vail
39match

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

Vail in July

29 °Cdaytime high
9 °Cnight-time low
35 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
CartagenaVail

Where the figures come from

Vail's temperatures are measured 47 km from the centre, at Kremmling.

Vail's station stands 186 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Vail 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). Vail: 2006-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Kremmling (46.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCartagenaVail
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 m2,445 m
Main airportRafael Nuñez International Airport (CTG)2 km from centre26 non-stop destinationsEagle County Regional Airport (EGE)48 km from centre16 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureCartagenaVail
City population914,5524,835
People per km²1,599400
Museums within 10 km21
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 Vail 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. 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.