VacationSelector
Botero sculptures on Plaza Botero, Medellin
MedellinBotero sculptures on Plaza Botero
The opera house on Place de la Comédie, Montpellier
MontpellierThe opera house on Place de la Comédie

Photos: Medellin by Steffen Schmitz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Montpellier by Peter, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Medellin or Montpellier?

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 Medellin for

  • prices
  • nightlife

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

Choose Montpellier for

  • beaches
  • day trips
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Montpellier’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. Medellin 5, Montpellier 64: Montpellier leads by 59 points.
Food & drink. Medellin 58, Montpellier 64: Montpellier leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Medellin 42, Montpellier 60: Montpellier leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. Medellin 76, Montpellier 56: Medellin leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Medellin 66, Montpellier 72: Montpellier leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Medellin 58, Montpellier 85: Montpellier leads by 27 points.
Good for families. Medellin 50, Montpellier 62: Montpellier leads by 12 points.
Getting around. Medellin 55, Montpellier 74: Montpellier leads by 19 points.
Shopping & style. Medellin 45, Montpellier 47: Montpellier leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Medellin 80, Montpellier 50: Medellin leads by 30 points.
Live music & performing arts. Medellin 42, Montpellier 63: Montpellier leads by 21 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Medellin 30, Montpellier 42: Montpellier leads by 12 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Medellin
51match

Wins on prices and nightlife with your weighting.

Montpellier
Best match
62match

Wins on beaches 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.

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

Montpellier in July

30 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
17 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
21 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
MedellinMontpellier

Where the figures come from

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. Medellin: 1958-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Medellin / Olaya Herrera (5.2 km from centre). Montpellier: 1991-2020 normals, Montpellier (7.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMedellinMontpellier
Official languageSpanishFrench
CurrencyColombian Peso (COP)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzCE230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number123112
Elevation1,405 m7 m
Main airportJose Maria Córdova International Airport (MDE)19 km from centre41 non-stop destinationsMontpellier-Méditerranée Airport (MPL)8 km from centre41 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureMedellinMontpellier
City population2,529,403310,240
People per km²6,6445,452
Museums within 10 km1414
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
Swim season, months above 21 °C-2 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Medellin or Montpellier 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. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.