VacationSelector
A palm-lined beach on Akumal Bay, Akumal
AkumalA palm-lined beach on Akumal Bay
The Plaza de los Naranjos and its fountain in the old town, Marbella
MarbellaThe Plaza de los Naranjos and its fountain in the old town

Photos: Akumal by Alfonzo Buscemi, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Marbella by Décio Franchini, Pexels License.

Akumal or Marbella?

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
  • prices

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

Choose Marbella for

  • nightlife
  • shopping
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Marbella’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, Marbella 76: Akumal leads by 12 points.
Food & drink. Akumal 28, Marbella 60: Marbella leads by 32 points.
Culture & sights. Akumal 6, Marbella 32: Marbella leads by 26 points.
Nightlife. Akumal 7, Marbella 64: Marbella leads by 57 points.
Nature & outdoors. Akumal 77, Marbella 70: Akumal leads by 7 points.
Day trips. Akumal 68, Marbella 77: Marbella leads by 9 points.
Good for families. Akumal and Marbella are level on 70.
Getting around. Akumal 18, Marbella 38: Marbella leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Akumal 7, Marbella 58: Marbella leads by 51 points.
Affordability. Akumal 36, Marbella 30: Akumal leads by 6 points.
Live music & performing arts. Akumal 4, Marbella 30: Marbella leads by 26 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Akumal 55, Marbella 52: Akumal leads by 3 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Akumal and Marbella.

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.

Marbella
Best match
55match

Wins on nightlife 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

Marbella in July

31 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
21 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
AkumalMarbella

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.

Marbella's temperatures are measured 40 km from the centre, at Malaga / Aeropuerto.

Marbella 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. Marbella: 1991-2020 normals, Malaga / Aeropuerto (39.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAkumalMarbella
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation11 m22 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)85 km from centre135 non-stop destinationsMálaga-Costa del Sol Airport (AGP)39 km from centre166 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureAkumalMarbella
City population2,154159,786
People per km²-1,398
Museums within 10 km06
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months3 months

Where else could you go?

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