VacationSelector
Flinders Street Station, Melbourne
MelbourneFlinders Street Station
The Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket, Phuket
PhuketThe Big Buddha on the hill above Phuket

Photos: Melbourne by Medelam, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Phuket by Mussi Katz, CC0.

Melbourne or Phuket?

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

  • getting around
  • live music and the arts
  • shopping

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

Choose Phuket for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Phuket’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, Phuket 90: Phuket leads by 40 points.
Food & drink. Melbourne 75, Phuket 66: Melbourne leads by 9 points.
Culture & sights. Melbourne 57, Phuket 35: Melbourne leads by 22 points.
Nightlife. Melbourne 75, Phuket 72: Melbourne leads by 3 points.
Nature & outdoors. Melbourne 70, Phuket 80: Phuket leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Melbourne 62, Phuket 45: Melbourne leads by 17 points.
Good for families. Melbourne 73, Phuket 65: Melbourne leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Melbourne 76, Phuket 22: Melbourne leads by 54 points.
Shopping & style. Melbourne 70, Phuket 42: Melbourne leads by 28 points.
Affordability. Melbourne 31, Phuket 68: Phuket leads by 37 points.
Live music & performing arts. Melbourne 72, Phuket 20: Melbourne leads by 52 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Melbourne 54, Phuket 82: Phuket leads by 28 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Melbourne
Best match
64match

Wins on getting around and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Phuket
57match

Wins on beaches 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

Phuket in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
287 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
MelbournePhuket

Where the figures come from

Phuket's temperatures are measured 27 km from the centre, at Phuket Airport.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Melbourne: 1991-2020 normals, Latrobe University / Kingsbury (13.1 km from centre). Phuket: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1961-1990) normals, Phuket Airport (26.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMelbournePhuket
Official languageEnglishThai
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Baht (THB)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+10, UTC+11 in summerUTC+7
Emergency number000Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation31 m19 m
Main airportMelbourne Airport (MEL)19 km from centre69 non-stop destinationsPhuket International Airport (HKT)27 km from centre85 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days-

By the numbers

MeasureMelbournePhuket
City population5,350,70577,610
People per km²5356,468
Museums within 10 km432
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Melbourne or Phuket 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. 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.