VacationSelector
Botero sculptures on Plaza Botero, Medellin
MedellinBotero sculptures on Plaza Botero
Parliament Hill across the Ottawa River, Ottawa
OttawaParliament Hill across the Ottawa River

Photos: Medellin by Steffen Schmitz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Ottawa by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Medellin or Ottawa?

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
  • food and drink

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

Choose Ottawa for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Ottawa’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, Ottawa 35: Ottawa leads by 30 points.
Food & drink. Medellin 58, Ottawa 45: Medellin leads by 13 points.
Culture & sights. Medellin 42, Ottawa 62: Ottawa leads by 20 points.
Nightlife. Medellin 76, Ottawa 35: Medellin leads by 41 points.
Nature & outdoors. Medellin 66, Ottawa 68: Ottawa leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Medellin 58, Ottawa 55: Medellin leads by 3 points.
Good for families. Medellin 50, Ottawa 68: Ottawa leads by 18 points.
Getting around. Medellin 55, Ottawa 62: Ottawa leads by 7 points.
Shopping & style. Medellin 45, Ottawa 40: Medellin leads by 5 points.
Affordability. Medellin 80, Ottawa 40: Medellin leads by 40 points.
Live music & performing arts. Medellin 42, Ottawa 52: Ottawa leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Medellin 30, Ottawa 55: Ottawa leads by 25 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Medellin and Ottawa.

Your match

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

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Medellin
51match

Wins on nightlife and prices with your weighting.

Ottawa
51match

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
12 hdaylight a day

Ottawa in July

27 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
82 mmrain in the month
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
MedellinOttawa

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). Ottawa: 1991-2020 normals, Ottawa CDA RCS (5.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMedellinOttawa
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 m70 m
Main airportJose Maria Córdova International Airport (MDE)19 km from centre41 non-stop destinationsOttawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport (YOW)12 km from centre46 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureMedellinOttawa
City population2,529,4031,017,449
People per km²6,644366
Museums within 10 km1420
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01

Where else could you go?

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