VacationSelector
Botero sculptures on Plaza Botero, Medellin
MedellinBotero sculptures on Plaza Botero
The City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia
ValenciaThe City of Arts and Sciences

Photos: Medellin by Steffen Schmitz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Valencia by Francesco Ungaro, Pexels License.

Medellin or Valencia?

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
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Valencia for

  • beaches
  • culture and sights
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Valencia’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, Valencia 78: Valencia leads by 73 points.
Food & drink. Medellin 58, Valencia 74: Valencia leads by 16 points.
Culture & sights. Medellin 42, Valencia 68: Valencia leads by 26 points.
Nightlife. Medellin 76, Valencia 66: Medellin leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Medellin 66, Valencia 60: Medellin leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Medellin 58, Valencia 70: Valencia leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Medellin 50, Valencia 75: Valencia leads by 25 points.
Getting around. Medellin 55, Valencia 76: Valencia leads by 21 points.
Shopping & style. Medellin 45, Valencia 57: Valencia leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Medellin 80, Valencia 57: Medellin leads by 23 points.
Live music & performing arts. Medellin 42, Valencia 55: Valencia leads by 13 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Medellin 30, Valencia 42: Valencia leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Medellin and Valencia.

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.

Valencia
Best match
65match

Wins on beaches and culture and sights 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

Valencia in July

30 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
7 mmrain in the month
10 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
MedellinValencia

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). Valencia: 1991-2020 normals, Valencia (1.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMedellinValencia
Official languageSpanishSpanish
CurrencyColombian Peso (COP)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number123112
Elevation1,405 m15 m
Main airportJose Maria Córdova International Airport (MDE)19 km from centre41 non-stop destinationsValencia Airport (VLC)9 km from centre109 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureMedellinValencia
City population2,529,403840,792
People per km²6,6446,242
Museums within 10 km1445
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
Swim season, months above 21 °C-5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Medellin or Valencia 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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.