VacationSelector
Flinders Street Station, Melbourne
MelbourneFlinders Street Station
Barlas Island in Honda Bay, Puerto Princesa
Puerto PrincesaBarlas Island in Honda Bay

Photos: Melbourne by Medelam, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Puerto Princesa by Ray in Manila, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Melbourne or Puerto Princesa?

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

  • live music and the arts
  • day trips
  • shopping

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

Choose Puerto Princesa for

  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Puerto Princesa’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, Puerto Princesa 58: Puerto Princesa leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. Melbourne 75, Puerto Princesa 38: Melbourne leads by 37 points.
Culture & sights. Melbourne 57, Puerto Princesa 22: Melbourne leads by 35 points.
Nightlife. Melbourne 75, Puerto Princesa 26: Melbourne leads by 49 points.
Nature & outdoors. Melbourne 70, Puerto Princesa 80: Puerto Princesa leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Melbourne 62, Puerto Princesa 12: Melbourne leads by 50 points.
Good for families. Melbourne 73, Puerto Princesa 45: Melbourne leads by 28 points.
Getting around. Melbourne 76, Puerto Princesa 30: Melbourne leads by 46 points.
Shopping & style. Melbourne 70, Puerto Princesa 20: Melbourne leads by 50 points.
Affordability. Melbourne 31, Puerto Princesa 78: Puerto Princesa leads by 47 points.
Live music & performing arts. Melbourne 72, Puerto Princesa 10: Melbourne leads by 62 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Melbourne 54, Puerto Princesa 40: Melbourne leads by 14 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Melbourne and Puerto Princesa.

Your match

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

Melbourne
Best match
64match

Wins on live music and the arts and day trips with your weighting.

Puerto Princesa
38match

Wins on prices and nature and the outdoors 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

Puerto Princesa in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
216 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
MelbournePuerto Princesa

Where the figures come from

Puerto Princesa has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Melbourne: 1991-2020 normals, Latrobe University / Kingsbury (13.1 km from centre). Puerto Princesa: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureMelbournePuerto Princesa
Official languageEnglishEnglish, Filipino, Taglish
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Philippine Peso (PHP)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzABC220 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10, UTC+11 in summerUTC+8
Emergency number000911
Elevation31 m98 m
Main airportMelbourne Airport (MEL)19 km from centre69 non-stop destinationsPuerto Princesa International Airport / PAF Antonio Bautista Air Base (PPS)2 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days18 days

By the numbers

MeasureMelbournePuerto Princesa
City population5,350,705316,384
People per km²535133
Museums within 10 km431
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 Puerto Princesa 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.