VacationSelector
Botero sculptures on Plaza Botero, Medellin
MedellinBotero sculptures on Plaza Botero
The pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach, St. Pete Beach
St. Pete BeachThe pink Don CeSar hotel seen from the beach

Photos: Medellin by Steffen Schmitz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; St. Pete Beach by Jeffrey Eisen, Pexels License.

Medellin or St. Pete 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

  • nightlife
  • prices
  • getting around

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

Choose St. Pete Beach for

  • beaches
  • families
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on St. Pete 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, St. Pete Beach 87: St. Pete Beach leads by 82 points.
Food & drink. Medellin 58, St. Pete Beach 40: Medellin leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Medellin 42, St. Pete Beach 18: Medellin leads by 24 points.
Nightlife. Medellin 76, St. Pete Beach 28: Medellin leads by 48 points.
Nature & outdoors. Medellin 66, St. Pete Beach 57: Medellin leads by 9 points.
Day trips. Medellin and St. Pete Beach are level on 58.
Good for families. Medellin 50, St. Pete Beach 72: St. Pete Beach leads by 22 points.
Getting around. Medellin 55, St. Pete Beach 30: Medellin leads by 25 points.
Shopping & style. Medellin 45, St. Pete Beach 20: Medellin leads by 25 points.
Affordability. Medellin 80, St. Pete Beach 32: Medellin leads by 48 points.
Live music & performing arts. Medellin 42, St. Pete Beach 20: Medellin leads by 22 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Medellin 30, St. Pete Beach 42: St. Pete Beach leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Medellin and St. Pete Beach.

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.

St. Pete Beach
42match

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 recordsunshine a day
No seasea
12 hdaylight a day

St. Pete Beach in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
185 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
MedellinSt. Pete 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.

St. Pete Beach 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.

St. Pete Beach's sunshine is measured 34 km from the centre, at Tampa International Airport.

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). St. Pete Beach: 1998-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Saint Petersburg (12.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMedellinSt. Pete Beach
Official languageSpanish-
CurrencyColombian Peso (COP)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number123911
Elevation1,405 m2 m
Main airportJose Maria Córdova International Airport (MDE)19 km from centre35 non-stop destinationsSt. Petersburg Clearwater International Airport (PIE)21 km from centre60 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureMedellinSt. Pete Beach
City population2,529,4038,879
People per km²6,644173
Museums within 10 km142
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C-8 months

Where else could you go?

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