VacationSelector
A palm-lined beach on Akumal Bay, Akumal
AkumalA palm-lined beach on Akumal Bay
Galway Cathedral from the River Corrib, Galway
GalwayGalway Cathedral from the River Corrib

Photos: Akumal by Alfonzo Buscemi, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Galway by Dieglop, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Akumal or Galway?

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 Akumal for

  • beaches
  • families
  • wellness

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

Choose Galway for

  • live music and the arts
  • nightlife
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Galway’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. Akumal 88, Galway 28: Akumal leads by 60 points.
Food & drink. Akumal 28, Galway 45: Galway leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Akumal 6, Galway 33: Galway leads by 27 points.
Nightlife. Akumal 7, Galway 50: Galway leads by 43 points.
Nature & outdoors. Akumal 77, Galway 78: Galway leads by 1 points.
Day trips. Akumal 68, Galway 56: Akumal leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Akumal 70, Galway 42: Akumal leads by 28 points.
Getting around. Akumal 18, Galway 58: Galway leads by 40 points.
Shopping & style. Akumal 7, Galway 38: Galway leads by 31 points.
Affordability. Akumal 36, Galway 28: Akumal leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Akumal 4, Galway 57: Galway leads by 53 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Akumal 55, Galway 28: Akumal leads by 27 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Akumal and Galway.

Your match

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

Akumal
39match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Galway
Best match
45match

Wins on live music and the arts and nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Akumal in July

30 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
119 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Galway in July

20 °Cdaytime high
13 °Cnight-time low
91 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
16 °Csea
16 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
AkumalGalway

Where the figures come from

Akumal 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.

Galway's temperatures are measured 64 km from the centre, at Shannon Airport.

Galway 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. Akumal: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Galway: 1991-2020 normals, Shannon Airport (64.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAkumalGalway
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaEnglish, Irish
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzG230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5UTC, UTC+1 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation11 m25 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)85 km from centre135 non-stop destinationsShannon Airport (SNN)64 km from centre39 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureAkumalGalway
City population2,15483,456
People per km²-1,563
Museums within 10 km04
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Akumal or Galway somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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.