VacationSelector

Kathmandu or Melbourne?

Two destinations compared in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

Swayambhunath with its prayer flags, Kathmandu
Kathmandu

Photo: Nabin K. Sapkota, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped

Flinders Street Station, Melbourne
Melbourne

Photo: Medelam, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped

Your match

Kathmandu
48
match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Melbourne
✓ Best match
64
match

Wins on families and getting around with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

Scoreboard

Our verdict on each category, scored 0 to 100 against fixed benchmark cities.

KathmanduMelbourne
Beaches & swimming. Melbourne leads by 46 points.46
Food & drink. Melbourne leads by 20 points.20
Culture & sights. Kathmandu leads by 25 points.25
Nightlife. Melbourne leads by 39 points.39
Nature & outdoors. Kathmandu and Melbourne are level on 70.
Day trips. Melbourne leads by 6 points.6
Good for families. Melbourne leads by 53 points.53
Getting around. Melbourne leads by 51 points.51
Shopping & style. Melbourne leads by 15 points.15
Affordability. Kathmandu leads by 66 points.66
Live music & performing arts. Melbourne leads by 44 points.44
Wellness & relaxation. Melbourne leads by 9 points.9
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Kathmandu and Melbourne.

When should you go?

Pick the month you can travel and see both cities side by side. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Climate figures for July
JulyKathmanduMelbourne
Daytime high29 °C14 °C
Night-time low20 °C6 °C
Rainfall in the month384 mm46 mm
Sunshine4 hours a day4 hours a day
Sea temperatureNo sea12 °C
Daylight14 hours a day10 hours a day

The whole year

Each row is shaded against that destination’s own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that figure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Kathmandu
19
22
26
29
29
29
29
29
28
27
23
20
Melbourne
27
27
24
20
17
14
14
15
17
20
22
25
Sea temperature, °C
Kathmandu
No coastline within reach
Melbourne
20
21
20
18
15
13
12
11
12
14
17
19
Rainfall, mm
Kathmandu
16
23
37
57
113
260
384
317
211
48
7
10
Melbourne
46
48
45
58
50
58
46
52
60
56
69
65
Daylight, hours per day
Kathmandu
11
11
12
13
14
14
14
13
12
12
11
10
Melbourne
15
14
12
11
10
10
10
11
12
13
14
15
Sunshine, hours per day
Kathmandu
6
6
7
7
7
5
4
4
5
7
7
7
Melbourne
9
7
7
6
5
4
4
6
6
7
7
9

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Kathmandu: 1991-2020 normals, Kathmandu Airport (4.7 km from centre). Melbourne: 1991-2020 normals, Latrobe University / Kingsbury (13.1 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromKathmanduMelbourne
New DelhiDEL
1 h 40 m
€175-205
KTM · 4 km
12 h 40 m
no fares
MEL · 19 km
Kuala LumpurKUL, SZB
4 h 30 m
€444-465
1 stop
KTM · 4 km
8 h 5 m
no fares
MEL · 19 km
BangkokBKK, DMK
3 h 15 m
€389-511
KTM · 4 km
9 h 15 m
€407-480
1 stop
MEL · 19 km
DohaDOH
4 h 35 m
€459-552
KTM · 4 km
14 h 45 m
no fares
MEL · 19 km
SingaporeSIN, XSP
4 h 50 m
no fares
KTM · 4 km
7 h 45 m
no fares
MEL · 19 km
Hong KongHKG
4 h 5 m
no fares
KTM · 4 km
9 h 25 m
no fares
MEL · 19 km
DubaiDXB, DWC
4 h 10 m
€400-446
KTM · 4 km
14 h 20 m
€856-961
2 stops
MEL · 19 km
ShanghaiPVG, SHA
4 h 50 m
no fares
KTM · 4 km
10 h 5 m
€542-1650
1 stop
MEL · 19 km
TokyoHND, NRT
6 h 45 m
no fares
KTM · 4 km
10 h 15 m
€809-850
1 stop
MEL · 19 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
6 h 55 m
€583-665
1 stop
KTM · 4 km
17 h 55 m
no fares
MEL · 19 km

The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-10 to 2026-12, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.

Before you go

MeasureKathmanduMelbourne
Official languageNepaliEnglish
CurrencyNepalese Rupee (NPR)Australian Dollar (AUD)
SocketsCM230 V, 50 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+5:45UTC+10, UTC+11 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 100, ambulance 102, fire 101000
Elevation1,300 m31 m
Main airportTribhuvan International Airport (KTM)4 km from centre38 non-stop destinationsMelbourne Airport (MEL)19 km from centre68 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-13 days

By the numbers

MeasureKathmanduMelbourne
City population845,7675,350,705
People per km²17,121535
Museums within 10 km942
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C-None

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Kathmandu 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. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate and flight figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-27. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.