VacationSelector
Botero sculptures on Plaza Botero, Medellin
MedellinBotero sculptures on Plaza Botero
Seven Mile Beach, Negril
NegrilSeven Mile Beach

Photos: Medellin by Steffen Schmitz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Negril by gustavo.kunst, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Medellin or Negril?

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

  • nightlife
  • prices
  • culture and sights

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

Choose Negril for

  • beaches
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Negril’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, Negril 93: Negril leads by 88 points.
Food & drink. Medellin 58, Negril 36: Medellin leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Medellin 42, Negril 8: Medellin leads by 34 points.
Nightlife. Medellin 76, Negril 40: Medellin leads by 36 points.
Nature & outdoors. Medellin 66, Negril 60: Medellin leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Medellin 58, Negril 35: Medellin leads by 23 points.
Good for families. Medellin 50, Negril 45: Medellin leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Medellin 55, Negril 30: Medellin leads by 25 points.
Shopping & style. Medellin 45, Negril 15: Medellin leads by 30 points.
Affordability. Medellin 80, Negril 44: Medellin leads by 36 points.
Live music & performing arts. Medellin 42, Negril 33: Medellin leads by 9 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Medellin 30, Negril 52: Negril leads by 22 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Medellin and Negril.

Your match

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

Medellin
Best match
51match

Wins on nightlife and prices with your weighting.

Negril
41match

Wins on beaches 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
No seasea
12 hdaylight a day

Negril in July

34 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
174 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
MedellinNegril

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.

Negril's temperatures are measured 52 km from the centre, at Montego Bay / Sangster.

Negril 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). Negril: 1991-2020 normals, Montego Bay / Sangster (51.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMedellinNegril
Official languageSpanishEnglish, Jamaican Patois
CurrencyColombian Peso (COP)Jamaican Dollar (JMD)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzAB116 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-5
Emergency number123Police 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110
Elevation1,405 m10 m
Main airportJose Maria Córdova International Airport (MDE)19 km from centre35 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)52 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureMedellinNegril
City population2,529,4034,500
People per km²6,644-
Museums within 10 km140
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Medellin or Negril 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. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.