VacationSelector
Botero sculptures on Plaza Botero, Medellin
MedellinBotero sculptures on Plaza Botero
The Opera House from the water, Sydney
SydneyThe Opera House from the water

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

Medellin or Sydney?

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
  • day trips

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

Choose Sydney for

  • beaches
  • live music and the arts
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Sydney’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, Sydney 95: Sydney leads by 90 points.
Food & drink. Medellin 58, Sydney 77: Sydney leads by 19 points.
Culture & sights. Medellin 42, Sydney 60: Sydney leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. Medellin 76, Sydney 60: Medellin leads by 16 points.
Nature & outdoors. Medellin 66, Sydney 85: Sydney leads by 19 points.
Day trips. Medellin 58, Sydney 50: Medellin leads by 8 points.
Good for families. Medellin 50, Sydney 75: Sydney leads by 25 points.
Getting around. Medellin 55, Sydney 75: Sydney leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Medellin 45, Sydney 68: Sydney leads by 23 points.
Affordability. Medellin 80, Sydney 22: Medellin leads by 58 points.
Live music & performing arts. Medellin 42, Sydney 73: Sydney leads by 31 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Medellin 30, Sydney 55: Sydney leads by 25 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Medellin and Sydney.

Your match

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

Medellin
51match

Wins on prices and nightlife with your weighting.

Sydney
Best match
66match

Wins on beaches and live music and the arts 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

Sydney in July

18 °Cdaytime high
9 °Cnight-time low
70 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
19 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
MedellinSydney

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). Sydney: 1991-2020 normals, Sydney Airport (3.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMedellinSydney
Official languageSpanishEnglish
CurrencyColombian Peso (COP)Australian Dollar (AUD)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+10, UTC+11 in summer
Emergency number123000
Elevation1,405 m6 m
Main airportJose Maria Córdova International Airport (MDE)19 km from centre41 non-stop destinationsSydney Kingsford Smith International Airport (SYD)9 km from centre99 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureMedellinSydney
City population2,529,4035,450,496
People per km²6,644449
Museums within 10 km1438
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
Swim season, months above 21 °C-6 months

Where else could you go?

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