VacationSelector
Flinders Street Station, Melbourne
MelbourneFlinders Street Station
Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo
TokyoShibuya Crossing

Photos: Melbourne by Medelam, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Tokyo by Benh LIEU SONG, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Melbourne or Tokyo?

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

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Tokyo for

  • shopping
  • culture and sights
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Tokyo’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, Tokyo 40: Melbourne leads by 10 points.
Food & drink. Melbourne 75, Tokyo 98: Tokyo leads by 23 points.
Culture & sights. Melbourne 57, Tokyo 84: Tokyo leads by 27 points.
Nightlife. Melbourne 75, Tokyo 86: Tokyo leads by 11 points.
Nature & outdoors. Melbourne 70, Tokyo 68: Melbourne leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Melbourne 62, Tokyo 85: Tokyo leads by 23 points.
Good for families. Melbourne 73, Tokyo 95: Tokyo leads by 22 points.
Getting around. Melbourne 76, Tokyo 98: Tokyo leads by 22 points.
Shopping & style. Melbourne 70, Tokyo 99: Tokyo leads by 29 points.
Affordability. Melbourne 31, Tokyo 48: Tokyo leads by 17 points.
Live music & performing arts. Melbourne 72, Tokyo 86: Tokyo leads by 14 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Melbourne 54, Tokyo 78: Tokyo leads by 24 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Melbourne
64match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Tokyo
Best match
80match

Wins on shopping and culture and sights 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

Tokyo in July

30 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
157 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
23 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
MelbourneTokyo

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Melbourne: 1991-2020 normals, Latrobe University / Kingsbury (13.1 km from centre). Tokyo: 1991-2020 normals, Tokyo (3.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMelbourneTokyo
Official languageEnglishJapanese
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)Yen (JPY)
SocketsI230 V, 50 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC+10, UTC+11 in summerUTC+9
Emergency number000Police 110, fire 119
Elevation31 m6 m
Main airportMelbourne Airport (MEL)19 km from centre69 non-stop destinationsTokyo Haneda International Airport (HND)18 km from centre98 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureMelbourneTokyo
City population5,350,70514,264,798
People per km²5356,501
Museums within 10 km43192
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone4 months

Where else could you go?

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