VacationSelector
The beach with the bay and the skyline behind, Acapulco
AcapulcoThe beach with the bay and the skyline behind
The lighthouse in the Paphos Archaeological Park, Paphos
PaphosThe lighthouse in the Paphos Archaeological Park

Photos: Acapulco by Felicia Navarrete, Pexels License; Paphos by Nikodem Nijaki, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Acapulco or Paphos?

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 Acapulco for

  • nightlife
  • prices
  • food and drink

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

Choose Paphos for

  • day trips
  • culture and sights
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Paphos’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. Acapulco 80, Paphos 76: Acapulco leads by 4 points.
Food & drink. Acapulco 55, Paphos 45: Acapulco leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Acapulco 28, Paphos 62: Paphos leads by 34 points.
Nightlife. Acapulco 64, Paphos 38: Acapulco leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Acapulco 50, Paphos 70: Paphos leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Acapulco 15, Paphos 64: Paphos leads by 49 points.
Good for families. Acapulco 45, Paphos 68: Paphos leads by 23 points.
Getting around. Acapulco 30, Paphos 40: Paphos leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Acapulco 32, Paphos 25: Acapulco leads by 7 points.
Affordability. Acapulco 74, Paphos 52: Acapulco leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. Acapulco 26, Paphos 22: Acapulco leads by 4 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Acapulco 32, Paphos 42: Paphos leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Acapulco and Paphos.

Your match

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

Acapulco
44match

Wins on nightlife and prices with your weighting.

Paphos
Best match
50match

Wins on day trips 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.

Acapulco in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
226 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Paphos in July

30 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
27 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
AcapulcoPaphos

Where the figures come from

Paphos has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Acapulco: 1991-2020 normals, Acapulco, Gro. (5.9 km from centre). Paphos: 1991-2020 normals, Paphos Airport (8.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAcapulcoPaphos
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaTurkish, Greek, Modern Greek
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzG240 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation18 m72 m
Main airportGeneral Juan N. Álvarez International Airport (ACA)18 km from centre10 non-stop destinationsPaphos International Airport (PFO)8 km from centre59 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days17 days

By the numbers

MeasureAcapulcoPaphos
City population658,60935,961
People per km²3501,987
Museums within 10 km34
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months6 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Acapulco or Paphos 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.