VacationSelector
Flinders Street Station, Melbourne
MelbourneFlinders Street Station
The Winchester Mystery House, San Jose
San JoseThe Winchester Mystery House

Photos: Melbourne by Medelam, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; San Jose by Roxanna Salceda, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Melbourne or San Jose?

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
  • nightlife
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose San Jose for

  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on San Jose’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, San Jose 30: Melbourne leads by 20 points.
Food & drink. Melbourne 75, San Jose 56: Melbourne leads by 19 points.
Culture & sights. Melbourne 57, San Jose 36: Melbourne leads by 21 points.
Nightlife. Melbourne 75, San Jose 33: Melbourne leads by 42 points.
Nature & outdoors. Melbourne 70, San Jose 72: San Jose leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Melbourne 62, San Jose 78: San Jose leads by 16 points.
Good for families. Melbourne 73, San Jose 65: Melbourne leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Melbourne 76, San Jose 30: Melbourne leads by 46 points.
Shopping & style. Melbourne 70, San Jose 48: Melbourne leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Melbourne 31, San Jose 20: Melbourne leads by 11 points.
Live music & performing arts. Melbourne 72, San Jose 38: Melbourne leads by 34 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Melbourne 54, San Jose 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 San Jose.

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 nightlife with your weighting.

San Jose
45match

Wins on day trips 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

San Jose in July

27 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
14 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080JFMAMJJASOND
MelbourneSan Jose

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Melbourne: 1991-2020 normals, Latrobe University / Kingsbury (13.1 km from centre). San Jose: 1991-2020 normals, San Jose / Santa Clara Trailer Village (8.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMelbourneSan Jose
Official languageEnglish-
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+10, UTC+11 in summerUTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number000911
Elevation31 m25 m
Main airportMelbourne Airport (MEL)19 km from centre69 non-stop destinationsMineta San Jose International Airport (SJC)8 km from centre38 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureMelbourneSan Jose
City population5,350,7051,013,240
People per km²5352,167
Museums within 10 km4319
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °CNoneNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Melbourne or San Jose 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.