VacationSelector
The City Hall of Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City
Ho Chi Minh CityThe City Hall of Ho Chi Minh City
Palacio Salvo under a blue sky, Montevideo
MontevideoPalacio Salvo under a blue sky

Photos: Ho Chi Minh City by trungydang, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Montevideo by Andrés Franchi Ugart…, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Ho Chi Minh City or Montevideo?

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 Ho Chi Minh City for

  • prices
  • food and drink
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Ho Chi Minh City’s own page.

Choose Montevideo for

  • beaches
  • live music and the arts
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Montevideo’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. Ho Chi Minh City 18, Montevideo 55: Montevideo leads by 37 points.
Food & drink. Ho Chi Minh City 86, Montevideo 57: Ho Chi Minh City leads by 29 points.
Culture & sights. Ho Chi Minh City 55, Montevideo 54: Ho Chi Minh City leads by 1 points.
Nightlife. Ho Chi Minh City 70, Montevideo 50: Ho Chi Minh City leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Ho Chi Minh City 28, Montevideo 34: Montevideo leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Ho Chi Minh City 58, Montevideo 55: Ho Chi Minh City leads by 3 points.
Good for families. Ho Chi Minh City 40, Montevideo 55: Montevideo leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Ho Chi Minh City 38, Montevideo 54: Montevideo leads by 16 points.
Shopping & style. Ho Chi Minh City 55, Montevideo 36: Ho Chi Minh City leads by 19 points.
Affordability. Ho Chi Minh City 92, Montevideo 42: Ho Chi Minh City leads by 50 points.
Live music & performing arts. Ho Chi Minh City 40, Montevideo 57: Montevideo leads by 17 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Ho Chi Minh City 60, Montevideo 38: Ho Chi Minh City leads by 22 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Ho Chi Minh City and Montevideo.

Your match

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

Ho Chi Minh City
Best match
53match

Wins on prices and food and drink with your weighting.

Montevideo
49match

Wins on beaches and live music and the arts with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Ho Chi Minh City in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
285 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Montevideo in July

15 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
99 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
11 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Ho Chi Minh CityMontevideo

Where the figures come from

Ho Chi Minh City 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. Ho Chi Minh City: 1991-2020 normals, Ho Chi Minh (6 km from centre). Montevideo: 1991-2020 normals, Carrasco (19.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureHo Chi Minh CityMontevideo
Official languageVietnamese-
CurrencyDong (VND)Peso Uruguayo (UYU)
SocketsACFG220 V, 50 HzCFIL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+7UTC-3
Emergency numberPolice 113, ambulance 115, fire 114911
Elevation13 m41 m
Main airportTan Son Nhat International Airport (SGN)7 km from centre90 non-stop destinationsCarrasco General Cesáreo L. Berisso International Airport (MVD)17 km from centre15 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-15 days

By the numbers

MeasureHo Chi Minh CityMontevideo
City population14,002,5981,302,954
People per km²2,0681,785
Museums within 10 km936
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Ho Chi Minh City or Montevideo 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). 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. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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.