VacationSelector
Botero sculptures on Plaza Botero, Medellin
MedellinBotero sculptures on Plaza Botero
Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo
TokyoShibuya Crossing

Photos: Medellin by Steffen Schmitz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Tokyo by Benh LIEU SONG, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Medellin or Tokyo?

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

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

Choose Tokyo for

  • shopping
  • wellness
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Tokyo’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, Tokyo 40: Tokyo leads by 35 points.
Food & drink. Medellin 58, Tokyo 98: Tokyo leads by 40 points.
Culture & sights. Medellin 42, Tokyo 84: Tokyo leads by 42 points.
Nightlife. Medellin 76, Tokyo 86: Tokyo leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Medellin 66, Tokyo 68: Tokyo leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Medellin 58, Tokyo 85: Tokyo leads by 27 points.
Good for families. Medellin 50, Tokyo 95: Tokyo leads by 45 points.
Getting around. Medellin 55, Tokyo 98: Tokyo leads by 43 points.
Shopping & style. Medellin 45, Tokyo 99: Tokyo leads by 54 points.
Affordability. Medellin 80, Tokyo 48: Medellin leads by 32 points.
Live music & performing arts. Medellin 42, Tokyo 86: Tokyo leads by 44 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Medellin 30, Tokyo 78: Tokyo leads by 48 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Medellin and Tokyo.

Your match

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

Medellin
51match

Wins on prices with your weighting.

Tokyo
Best match
80match

Wins on shopping 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
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
12 hdaylight a day

Tokyo in July

30 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
157 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
23 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
MedellinTokyo

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). Tokyo: 1991-2020 normals, Tokyo (3.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMedellinTokyo
Official languageSpanishJapanese
CurrencyColombian Peso (COP)Yen (JPY)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+9
Emergency number123Police 110, fire 119
Elevation1,405 m6 m
Main airportJose Maria Córdova International Airport (MDE)19 km from centre41 non-stop destinationsTokyo Haneda International Airport (HND)18 km from centre98 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureMedellinTokyo
City population2,529,40314,264,798
People per km²6,6446,501
Museums within 10 km14192
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C-4 months

Where else could you go?

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