VacationSelector
Botero sculptures on Plaza Botero, Medellin
MedellinBotero sculptures on Plaza Botero
Place d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica, Montreal
MontrealPlace d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica

Photos: Medellin by Steffen Schmitz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Montreal by Arild Vågen, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Medellin or Montreal?

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
  • day trips
  • nightlife

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

Choose Montreal for

  • live music and the arts
  • wellness
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Montreal’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, Montreal 25: Montreal leads by 20 points.
Food & drink. Medellin 58, Montreal 78: Montreal leads by 20 points.
Culture & sights. Medellin 42, Montreal 60: Montreal leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. Medellin 76, Montreal 75: Medellin leads by 1 points.
Nature & outdoors. Medellin and Montreal are level on 66.
Day trips. Medellin 58, Montreal 55: Medellin leads by 3 points.
Good for families. Medellin 50, Montreal 68: Montreal leads by 18 points.
Getting around. Medellin 55, Montreal 72: Montreal leads by 17 points.
Shopping & style. Medellin 45, Montreal 60: Montreal leads by 15 points.
Affordability. Medellin 80, Montreal 45: Medellin leads by 35 points.
Live music & performing arts. Medellin 42, Montreal 76: Montreal leads by 34 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Medellin 30, Montreal 57: Montreal leads by 27 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Medellin and Montreal.

Your match

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

Medellin
51match

Wins on prices and day trips with your weighting.

Montreal
Best match
61match

Wins on live music and the arts and wellness 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
12 hdaylight a day

Montreal in July

27 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
98 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
MedellinMontreal

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). Montreal: 1991-2020 normals, Montreal McTavish (3.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMedellinMontreal
Official languageSpanishFrench, English
CurrencyColombian Peso (COP)Canadian Dollar (CAD)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number123911
Elevation1,405 m31 m
Main airportJose Maria Córdova International Airport (MDE)19 km from centre41 non-stop destinationsMontreal / Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL)16 km from centre166 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureMedellinMontreal
City population2,529,4031,895,211
People per km²6,6443,806
Museums within 10 km1437
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00

Where else could you go?

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

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.