VacationSelector
Flinders Street Station, Melbourne
MelbourneFlinders Street Station
Sugarloaf Mountain above the boats in Botafogo Bay, Rio de Janeiro
Rio de JaneiroSugarloaf Mountain above the boats in Botafogo Bay

Photos: Melbourne by Medelam, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Rio de Janeiro by Arne Müseler, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, cropped.

Melbourne or Rio de Janeiro?

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
  • wellness
  • families

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

Choose Rio de Janeiro for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Rio de Janeiro’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, Rio de Janeiro 92: Rio de Janeiro leads by 42 points.
Food & drink. Melbourne 75, Rio de Janeiro 62: Melbourne leads by 13 points.
Culture & sights. Melbourne 57, Rio de Janeiro 68: Rio de Janeiro leads by 11 points.
Nightlife. Melbourne 75, Rio de Janeiro 80: Rio de Janeiro leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. Melbourne 70, Rio de Janeiro 90: Rio de Janeiro leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Melbourne 62, Rio de Janeiro 50: Melbourne leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Melbourne 73, Rio de Janeiro 50: Melbourne leads by 23 points.
Getting around. Melbourne 76, Rio de Janeiro 44: Melbourne leads by 32 points.
Shopping & style. Melbourne 70, Rio de Janeiro 50: Melbourne leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Melbourne 31, Rio de Janeiro 60: Rio de Janeiro leads by 29 points.
Live music & performing arts. Melbourne 72, Rio de Janeiro 66: Melbourne leads by 6 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Melbourne 54, Rio de Janeiro 30: Melbourne leads by 24 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Melbourne and Rio de Janeiro.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Melbourne
64match

Wins on getting around and wellness with your weighting.

Rio de Janeiro
62match

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

Rio de Janeiro in July

24 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
45 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
22 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
MelbourneRio de Janeiro

Where the figures come from

Rio de Janeiro 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). Rio de Janeiro: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureMelbourneRio de Janeiro
Official languageEnglishPortuguese
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Brazilian Real (BRL)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzCN60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10, UTC+11 in summerUTC-3
Emergency number000Police 190, ambulance 192, fire 193
Elevation31 m31 m
Main airportMelbourne Airport (MEL)19 km from centre69 non-stop destinationsRio de Janeiro Galeão – Tom Jobim International Airport (GIG)12 km from centre54 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureMelbourneRio de Janeiro
City population5,350,7056,211,223
People per km²5354,930
Museums within 10 km4369
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km13
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 Rio de Janeiro 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.