VacationSelector
A palm-lined beach on Akumal Bay, Akumal
AkumalA palm-lined beach on Akumal Bay
Main Beach with its palms and lifeguard tower, Laguna Beach
Laguna BeachMain Beach with its palms and lifeguard tower

Photos: Akumal by Alfonzo Buscemi, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Laguna Beach by Mark Stebnicki, Pexels License.

Akumal or Laguna Beach?

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

  • prices
  • beaches
  • wellness

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

Choose Laguna Beach for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Laguna Beach’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, Laguna Beach 72: Akumal leads by 16 points.
Food & drink. Akumal 28, Laguna Beach 40: Laguna Beach leads by 12 points.
Culture & sights. Akumal 6, Laguna Beach 27: Laguna Beach leads by 21 points.
Nightlife. Akumal 7, Laguna Beach 18: Laguna Beach leads by 11 points.
Nature & outdoors. Akumal 77, Laguna Beach 73: Akumal leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Akumal 68, Laguna Beach 72: Laguna Beach leads by 4 points.
Good for families. Akumal 70, Laguna Beach 68: Akumal leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Akumal 18, Laguna Beach 33: Laguna Beach leads by 15 points.
Shopping & style. Akumal 7, Laguna Beach 46: Laguna Beach leads by 39 points.
Affordability. Akumal 36, Laguna Beach 12: Akumal leads by 24 points.
Live music & performing arts. Akumal 4, Laguna Beach 40: Laguna Beach leads by 36 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Akumal 55, Laguna Beach 47: Akumal leads by 8 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Akumal and Laguna Beach.

Your match

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

Akumal
39match

Wins on prices and beaches with your weighting.

Laguna Beach
Best match
46match

Wins on shopping and live music and the arts 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
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Laguna Beach in July

28 °Cdaytime high
17 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
AkumalLaguna Beach

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.

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. Laguna Beach: 1981-2010 normals, Irvine (15.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAkumalLaguna Beach
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya-
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation11 m6 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)85 km from centre135 non-stop destinationsJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)18 km from centre53 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureAkumalLaguna Beach
City population2,15423,032
People per km²-907
Museums within 10 km02
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 Laguna Beach 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. 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.