VacationSelector
Botero sculptures on Plaza Botero, Medellin
MedellinBotero sculptures on Plaza Botero
Palms at CityPlace on Rosemary Avenue, West Palm Beach
West Palm BeachPalms at CityPlace on Rosemary Avenue

Photos: Medellin by Steffen Schmitz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; West Palm Beach by Michael Rivera, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Medellin or West Palm 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

  • prices
  • nightlife
  • getting around

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

Choose West Palm Beach for

  • beaches
  • shopping
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on West Palm 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, West Palm Beach 80: West Palm Beach leads by 75 points.
Food & drink. Medellin 58, West Palm Beach 52: Medellin leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Medellin and West Palm Beach are level on 42.
Nightlife. Medellin 76, West Palm Beach 36: Medellin leads by 40 points.
Nature & outdoors. Medellin 66, West Palm Beach 58: Medellin leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Medellin 58, West Palm Beach 55: Medellin leads by 3 points.
Good for families. Medellin 50, West Palm Beach 66: West Palm Beach leads by 16 points.
Getting around. Medellin 55, West Palm Beach 38: Medellin leads by 17 points.
Shopping & style. Medellin 45, West Palm Beach 64: West Palm Beach leads by 19 points.
Affordability. Medellin 80, West Palm Beach 23: Medellin leads by 57 points.
Live music & performing arts. Medellin 42, West Palm Beach 47: West Palm Beach leads by 5 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Medellin 30, West Palm Beach 44: West Palm Beach leads by 14 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Medellin and West Palm Beach.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Medellin
51match

Wins on prices and nightlife with your weighting.

West Palm Beach
50match

Wins on beaches and shopping 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 seasea
12 hdaylight a day

West Palm Beach in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
145 mmrain in the month
29 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
MedellinWest Palm 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.

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). West Palm Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Palm Beach International (5.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMedellinWest Palm 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 m6 m
Main airportJose Maria Córdova International Airport (MDE)19 km from centre41 non-stop destinationsPresident Donald J. Trump International Airport (DJT)6 km from centre42 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureMedellinWest Palm Beach
City population2,529,403117,415
People per km²6,644786
Museums within 10 km144
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Medellin or West Palm 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.