VacationSelector
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
GlasgowKelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
Botero sculptures on Plaza Botero, Medellin
MedellinBotero sculptures on Plaza Botero

Photos: Glasgow by Stinglehammer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Medellin by Steffen Schmitz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Glasgow or Medellin?

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 Glasgow for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • shopping

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

Choose Medellin for

  • prices
  • nightlife
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Medellin’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. Glasgow 14, Medellin 5: Glasgow leads by 9 points.
Food & drink. Glasgow 52, Medellin 58: Medellin leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Glasgow 62, Medellin 42: Glasgow leads by 20 points.
Nightlife. Glasgow 66, Medellin 76: Medellin leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Glasgow 75, Medellin 66: Glasgow leads by 9 points.
Day trips. Glasgow 76, Medellin 58: Glasgow leads by 18 points.
Good for families. Glasgow 58, Medellin 50: Glasgow leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Glasgow 66, Medellin 55: Glasgow leads by 11 points.
Shopping & style. Glasgow 64, Medellin 45: Glasgow leads by 19 points.
Affordability. Glasgow 46, Medellin 80: Medellin leads by 34 points.
Live music & performing arts. Glasgow 72, Medellin 42: Glasgow leads by 30 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Glasgow 28, Medellin 30: Medellin leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Glasgow and Medellin.

Your match

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

Glasgow
Best match
57match

Wins on live music and the arts and culture and sights with your weighting.

Medellin
51match

Wins on prices 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.

Glasgow in July

19 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
85 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
15 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

Medellin in July

29 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
133 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
12 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
GlasgowMedellin

Where the figures come from

Glasgow 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.

Glasgow's sunshine is measured 90 km from the centre, at Eskdalemuir.

Medellin 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. Glasgow: 1991-2020 normals, Glasgow Airport (11.5 km from centre). Medellin: 1958-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Medellin / Olaya Herrera (5.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureGlasgowMedellin
Official languageEnglishSpanish
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Colombian Peso (COP)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB110 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number112 or 999123
Elevation21 m1,405 m
Main airportGlasgow Airport (GLA)11 km from centre95 non-stop destinationsJose Maria Córdova International Airport (MDE)19 km from centre41 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days19 days

By the numbers

MeasureGlasgowMedellin
City population626,4102,529,403
People per km²1906,644
Museums within 10 km2914
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Glasgow or Medellin somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national 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.