VacationSelector
A palm-lined beach on Akumal Bay, Akumal
AkumalA palm-lined beach on Akumal Bay
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera

Photos: Akumal by Alfonzo Buscemi, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License.

Akumal or Kyoto?

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
  • nature and the outdoors
  • families

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

Choose Kyoto for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Kyoto’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, Kyoto 15: Akumal leads by 73 points.
Food & drink. Akumal 28, Kyoto 85: Kyoto leads by 57 points.
Culture & sights. Akumal 6, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 90 points.
Nightlife. Akumal 7, Kyoto 35: Kyoto leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Akumal 77, Kyoto 70: Akumal leads by 7 points.
Day trips. Akumal 68, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 28 points.
Good for families. Akumal 70, Kyoto 68: Akumal leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Akumal 18, Kyoto 72: Kyoto leads by 54 points.
Shopping & style. Akumal 7, Kyoto 72: Kyoto leads by 65 points.
Affordability. Akumal 36, Kyoto 50: Kyoto leads by 14 points.
Live music & performing arts. Akumal 4, Kyoto 60: Kyoto leads by 56 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Akumal 55, Kyoto 70: Kyoto leads by 15 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Akumal
39match

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

Kyoto
Best match
66match

Wins on culture and sights and shopping 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

Kyoto in July

31 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
225 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
AkumalKyoto

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.

Kyoto's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Osaka.

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. Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAkumalKyoto
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaJapanese
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Yen (JPY)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+9
Emergency number911Police 110, fire 119
Elevation11 m51 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)85 km from centre135 non-stop destinationsKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureAkumalKyoto
City population2,1541,463,723
People per km²-1,768
Museums within 10 km077
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km04
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Akumal or Kyoto 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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.