VacationSelector
Flinders Street Station, Melbourne
MelbourneFlinders Street Station
The Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock, Petra
PetraThe Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock

Photos: Melbourne by Medelam, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Petra by Yasir Gürbüz, Pexels License.

Melbourne or Petra?

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

  • nightlife
  • live music and the arts
  • food and drink

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

Choose Petra for

  • culture and sights
  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Petra’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 50, Petra 5: Melbourne leads by 45 points.
Food & drink. Melbourne 75, Petra 22: Melbourne leads by 53 points.
Culture & sights. Melbourne 57, Petra 85: Petra leads by 28 points.
Nightlife. Melbourne 75, Petra 5: Melbourne leads by 70 points.
Nature & outdoors. Melbourne 70, Petra 78: Petra leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Melbourne 62, Petra 30: Melbourne leads by 32 points.
Good for families. Melbourne 73, Petra 25: Melbourne leads by 48 points.
Getting around. Melbourne 76, Petra 25: Melbourne leads by 51 points.
Shopping & style. Melbourne 70, Petra 18: Melbourne leads by 52 points.
Affordability. Melbourne 31, Petra 45: Petra leads by 14 points.
Live music & performing arts. Melbourne 72, Petra 10: Melbourne leads by 62 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Melbourne 54, Petra 28: Melbourne leads by 26 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Melbourne and Petra.

Your match

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

Melbourne
Best match
64match

Wins on nightlife and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Petra
31match

Wins on culture and sights and prices 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

Petra in July

35 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080JFMAMJJASOND
MelbournePetra

Where the figures come from

Petra's temperatures are measured 34 km from the centre, at Ma'An.

Petra's station stands 219 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

Petra 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. Melbourne: 1991-2020 normals, Latrobe University / Kingsbury (13.1 km from centre). Petra: 1991-2020 normals, Ma'An (33.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMelbournePetra
Official languageEnglishArabic
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Jordanian Dinar (JOD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzBCFGJ230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10, UTC+11 in summerUTC+3
Emergency number000911
Elevation31 m850 m
Main airportMelbourne Airport (MEL)19 km from centre69 non-stop destinationsKing Hussein International Airport (AQJ)90 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days-

By the numbers

MeasureMelbournePetra
City population5,350,705-
People per km²535-
Museums within 10 km432
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone-

Where else could you go?

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