VacationSelector
Flinders Street Station, Melbourne
MelbourneFlinders Street Station
Brooklyn Bridge and Lower Manhattan, New York
New YorkBrooklyn Bridge and Lower Manhattan

Photos: Melbourne by Medelam, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; New York by Jakub Hałun, CC BY 4.0, cropped.

Melbourne or New York?

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 Melbourne for

  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

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

Choose New York for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on New York’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. Melbourne and New York are level on 50.
Food & drink. Melbourne 75, New York 92: New York leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Melbourne 57, New York 89: New York leads by 32 points.
Nightlife. Melbourne 75, New York 97: New York leads by 22 points.
Nature & outdoors. Melbourne 70, New York 55: Melbourne leads by 15 points.
Day trips. Melbourne 62, New York 68: New York leads by 6 points.
Good for families. Melbourne 73, New York 70: Melbourne leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Melbourne 76, New York 82: New York leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. Melbourne 70, New York 97: New York leads by 27 points.
Affordability. Melbourne 31, New York 12: Melbourne leads by 19 points.
Live music & performing arts. Melbourne 72, New York 99: New York leads by 27 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Melbourne 54, New York 42: Melbourne leads by 12 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Melbourne and New York.

Your match

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

Melbourne
64match

Wins on prices and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

New York
Best match
71match

Wins on culture and sights 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.

Melbourne in July

14 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
46 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
12 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

New York in July

30 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
107 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
22 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
MelbourneNew York

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Melbourne: 1991-2020 normals, Latrobe University / Kingsbury (13.1 km from centre). New York: 1991-2020 normals, LaGuardia Airport (12.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMelbourneNew York
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10, UTC+11 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number000911
Elevation31 m25 m
Main airportMelbourne Airport (MEL)19 km from centre69 non-stop destinationsJohn F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)21 km from centre189 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureMelbourneNew York
City population5,350,7058,804,190
People per km²5357,256
Museums within 10 km43157
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone3 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Melbourne or New York 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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. 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.