VacationSelector
Botero sculptures on Plaza Botero, Medellin
MedellinBotero sculptures on Plaza Botero
Waterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor, Newport Beach
Newport BeachWaterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor

Photos: Medellin by Steffen Schmitz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Newport Beach by Don Ramey Logan, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Medellin or Newport Beach?

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
  • getting around

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

Choose Newport Beach for

  • beaches
  • families
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Newport Beach’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, Newport Beach 70: Newport Beach leads by 65 points.
Food & drink. Medellin 58, Newport Beach 50: Medellin leads by 8 points.
Culture & sights. Medellin 42, Newport Beach 20: Medellin leads by 22 points.
Nightlife. Medellin 76, Newport Beach 33: Medellin leads by 43 points.
Nature & outdoors. Medellin and Newport Beach are level on 66.
Day trips. Medellin 58, Newport Beach 70: Newport Beach leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Medellin 50, Newport Beach 80: Newport Beach leads by 30 points.
Getting around. Medellin 55, Newport Beach 20: Medellin leads by 35 points.
Shopping & style. Medellin 45, Newport Beach 62: Newport Beach leads by 17 points.
Affordability. Medellin 80, Newport Beach 15: Medellin leads by 65 points.
Live music & performing arts. Medellin 42, Newport Beach 46: Newport Beach leads by 4 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Medellin 30, Newport Beach 44: Newport Beach leads by 14 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Medellin and Newport Beach.

Your match

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

Medellin
Best match
51match

Wins on prices and nightlife with your weighting.

Newport Beach
48match

Wins on beaches and families 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

Newport Beach in July

26 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
MedellinNewport Beach

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). Newport Beach: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1981-2010) normals, Santa Ana / Paularino (7.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMedellinNewport Beach
Official languageSpanish-
CurrencyColombian Peso (COP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number123911
Elevation1,405 m3 m
Main airportJose Maria Córdova International Airport (MDE)19 km from centre35 non-stop destinationsJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)7 km from centre53 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureMedellinNewport Beach
City population2,529,40385,239
People per km²6,644622
Museums within 10 km144
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C-None

Where else could you go?

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