VacationSelector
Botero sculptures on Plaza Botero, Medellin
MedellinBotero sculptures on Plaza Botero
The steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi, New Orleans
New OrleansThe steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi

Photos: Medellin by Steffen Schmitz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; New Orleans by Bernard Spragg, CC0.

Medellin or New Orleans?

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
  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips

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

Choose New Orleans for

  • live music and the arts
  • food and drink
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on New Orleans’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, New Orleans 14: New Orleans leads by 9 points.
Food & drink. Medellin 58, New Orleans 84: New Orleans leads by 26 points.
Culture & sights. Medellin 42, New Orleans 67: New Orleans leads by 25 points.
Nightlife. Medellin 76, New Orleans 85: New Orleans leads by 9 points.
Nature & outdoors. Medellin 66, New Orleans 42: Medellin leads by 24 points.
Day trips. Medellin 58, New Orleans 52: Medellin leads by 6 points.
Good for families. Medellin 50, New Orleans 55: New Orleans leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Medellin and New Orleans are level on 55.
Shopping & style. Medellin 45, New Orleans 54: New Orleans leads by 9 points.
Affordability. Medellin 80, New Orleans 40: Medellin leads by 40 points.
Live music & performing arts. Medellin 42, New Orleans 80: New Orleans leads by 38 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Medellin 30, New Orleans 25: Medellin leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Medellin and New Orleans.

Your match

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

Medellin
51match

Wins on prices and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

New Orleans
Best match
54match

Wins on live music and the arts and food and drink 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 seasea
12 hdaylight a day

New Orleans in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
169 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
MedellinNew Orleans

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). New Orleans: 1991-2020 normals, New Orleans Airport (2.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMedellinNew Orleans
Official languageSpanish-
CurrencyColombian Peso (COP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-6, UTC-5 in summer
Emergency number123911
Elevation1,405 m-2 m
Main airportJose Maria Córdova International Airport (MDE)19 km from centre41 non-stop destinationsLouis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)18 km from centre51 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureMedellinNew Orleans
City population2,529,403383,997
People per km²6,644423
Museums within 10 km1416
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C-7 months

Where else could you go?

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