VacationSelector
A palm-lined beach on Akumal Bay, Akumal
AkumalA palm-lined beach on Akumal Bay
Flinders Street Station, Melbourne
MelbourneFlinders Street Station

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

Akumal or Melbourne?

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
  • day trips

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

Choose Melbourne for

  • nightlife
  • live music and the arts
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Melbourne’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, Melbourne 50: Akumal leads by 38 points.
Food & drink. Akumal 28, Melbourne 75: Melbourne leads by 47 points.
Culture & sights. Akumal 6, Melbourne 57: Melbourne leads by 51 points.
Nightlife. Akumal 7, Melbourne 75: Melbourne leads by 68 points.
Nature & outdoors. Akumal 77, Melbourne 70: Akumal leads by 7 points.
Day trips. Akumal 68, Melbourne 62: Akumal leads by 6 points.
Good for families. Akumal 70, Melbourne 73: Melbourne leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Akumal 18, Melbourne 76: Melbourne leads by 58 points.
Shopping & style. Akumal 7, Melbourne 70: Melbourne leads by 63 points.
Affordability. Akumal 36, Melbourne 31: Akumal leads by 5 points.
Live music & performing arts. Akumal 4, Melbourne 72: Melbourne leads by 68 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Akumal 55, Melbourne 54: Akumal leads by 1 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Akumal and Melbourne.

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.

Melbourne
Best match
64match

Wins on nightlife 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
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Melbourne in July

14 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
46 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
12 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
AkumalMelbourne

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. Melbourne: 1991-2020 normals, Latrobe University / Kingsbury (13.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAkumalMelbourne
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaEnglish
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Australian Dollar (AUD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+10, UTC+11 in summer
Emergency number911000
Elevation11 m31 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)85 km from centre135 non-stop destinationsMelbourne Airport (MEL)19 km from centre69 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureAkumalMelbourne
City population2,1545,350,705
People per km²-535
Museums within 10 km043
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
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 Melbourne 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.