VacationSelector
Palacio Salvo under a blue sky, Montevideo
MontevideoPalacio Salvo under a blue sky
The wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind, Queenstown
QueenstownThe wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind

Photos: Montevideo by Andrés Franchi Ugart…, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Queenstown by Robert Linsdell, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Montevideo or Queenstown?

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 Montevideo for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • beaches

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

Choose Queenstown for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • families
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Queenstown’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. Montevideo 55, Queenstown 20: Montevideo leads by 35 points.
Food & drink. Montevideo 57, Queenstown 45: Montevideo leads by 12 points.
Culture & sights. Montevideo 54, Queenstown 12: Montevideo leads by 42 points.
Nightlife. Montevideo 50, Queenstown 42: Montevideo leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montevideo 34, Queenstown 97: Queenstown leads by 63 points.
Day trips. Montevideo 55, Queenstown 50: Montevideo leads by 5 points.
Good for families. Montevideo 55, Queenstown 60: Queenstown leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Montevideo 54, Queenstown 45: Montevideo leads by 9 points.
Shopping & style. Montevideo 36, Queenstown 28: Montevideo leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Montevideo 42, Queenstown 20: Montevideo leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montevideo 57, Queenstown 14: Montevideo leads by 43 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montevideo 38, Queenstown 42: Queenstown leads by 4 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montevideo and Queenstown.

Your match

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

Montevideo
Best match
49match

Wins on live music and the arts and culture and sights with your weighting.

Queenstown
40match

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

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Montevideo in July

15 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
99 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
11 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Queenstown in July

6 °Cdaytime high
-1 °Cnight-time low
115 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
9 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
MontevideoQueenstown

Where the figures come from

Queenstown 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. Montevideo: 1991-2020 normals, Carrasco (19.2 km from centre). Queenstown: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureMontevideoQueenstown
Official language-English, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyPeso Uruguayo (UYU)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsCFIL230 V, 50 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-3UTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency number911111
Elevation41 m324 m
Main airportCarrasco General Cesáreo L. Berisso International Airport (MVD)17 km from centre15 non-stop destinationsQueenstown Airport (ZQN)7 km from centre7 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year15 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontevideoQueenstown
City population1,302,95429,000
People per km²1,785-
Museums within 10 km360
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C4 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Montevideo or Queenstown 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). 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.