VacationSelector
The Scott Monument and Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh
EdinburghThe Scott Monument and Princes Street Gardens
Flinders Street Station, Melbourne
MelbourneFlinders Street Station

Photos: Edinburgh by Carlos Delgado, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Melbourne by Medelam, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Edinburgh or Melbourne?

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 Edinburgh for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Melbourne for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Melbourne’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. Edinburgh 22, Melbourne 50: Melbourne leads by 28 points.
Food & drink. Edinburgh 53, Melbourne 75: Melbourne leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Edinburgh 75, Melbourne 57: Edinburgh leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. Edinburgh 50, Melbourne 75: Melbourne leads by 25 points.
Nature & outdoors. Edinburgh 75, Melbourne 70: Edinburgh leads by 5 points.
Day trips. Edinburgh 75, Melbourne 62: Edinburgh leads by 13 points.
Good for families. Edinburgh 62, Melbourne 73: Melbourne leads by 11 points.
Getting around. Edinburgh 74, Melbourne 76: Melbourne leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Edinburgh 50, Melbourne 70: Melbourne leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Edinburgh 30, Melbourne 31: Melbourne leads by 1 points.
Live music & performing arts. Edinburgh and Melbourne are level on 72.
Wellness & relaxation. Edinburgh 34, Melbourne 54: Melbourne leads by 20 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Edinburgh and Melbourne.

Your match

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

Edinburgh
56match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips with your weighting.

Melbourne
Best match
64match

Wins on beaches 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.

Edinburgh in July

19 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
66 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
14 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

Melbourne in July

14 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
46 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
12 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080JFMAMJJASOND
EdinburghMelbourne

Where the figures come from

Edinburgh 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.

Edinburgh's sunshine is measured 52 km from the centre, at Leuchars.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Edinburgh: 1991-2020 normals, Edinburgh Airport (10 km from centre). Melbourne: 1991-2020 normals, Latrobe University / Kingsbury (13.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureEdinburghMelbourne
Official languageEnglishEnglish
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Australian Dollar (AUD)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC+10, UTC+11 in summer
Emergency number112 or 999000
Elevation47 m31 m
Main airportEdinburgh Airport (EDI)11 km from centre163 non-stop destinationsMelbourne Airport (MEL)19 km from centre69 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureEdinburghMelbourne
City population488,0505,350,705
People per km²1,884535
Museums within 10 km3243
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km31
Swim season, months above 21 °CNoneNone

Where else could you go?

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