VacationSelector
Painted wooden houses under palms in Key West, Key West
Key WestPainted wooden houses under palms in Key West
Flinders Street Station, Melbourne
MelbourneFlinders Street Station

Photos: Key West by Dominik Gryzbon, Pexels License; Melbourne by Medelam, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Key West 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 Key West for

  • beaches

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

Choose Melbourne for

  • shopping
  • day trips
  • live music and the arts

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. Key West 60, Melbourne 50: Key West leads by 10 points.
Food & drink. Key West 45, Melbourne 75: Melbourne leads by 30 points.
Culture & sights. Key West 40, Melbourne 57: Melbourne leads by 17 points.
Nightlife. Key West 62, Melbourne 75: Melbourne leads by 13 points.
Nature & outdoors. Key West 62, Melbourne 70: Melbourne leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Key West 28, Melbourne 62: Melbourne leads by 34 points.
Good for families. Key West 40, Melbourne 73: Melbourne leads by 33 points.
Getting around. Key West 62, Melbourne 76: Melbourne leads by 14 points.
Shopping & style. Key West 30, Melbourne 70: Melbourne leads by 40 points.
Affordability. Key West 15, Melbourne 31: Melbourne leads by 16 points.
Live music & performing arts. Key West 38, Melbourne 72: Melbourne leads by 34 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Key West 40, Melbourne 54: Melbourne leads by 14 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Key West and Melbourne.

Your match

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

Key West
44match

Wins on beaches with your weighting.

Melbourne
Best match
64match

Wins on shopping and day trips with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Key West in July

32 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
84 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
14 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°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
Key WestMelbourne

Where the figures come from

Key West's temperatures are measured 69 km from the centre, at Key West Airport.

Key West 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. Key West: 1991-2020 normals, Key West Airport (69.1 km from centre). Melbourne: 1991-2020 normals, Latrobe University / Kingsbury (13.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureKey WestMelbourne
Official language-English
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Australian Dollar (AUD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC+10, UTC+11 in summer
Emergency number911000
Elevation4 m31 m
Main airportKey West International Airport (EYW)2 km from centre24 non-stop destinationsMelbourne Airport (MEL)19 km from centre69 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureKey WestMelbourne
City population26,4445,350,705
People per km²1,407535
Museums within 10 km743
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Key West 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.