VacationSelector
A palm-lined beach on Akumal Bay, Akumal
AkumalA palm-lined beach on Akumal Bay
Ca' d'Zan, the Ringling mansion on Sarasota Bay, Sarasota
SarasotaCa' d'Zan, the Ringling mansion on Sarasota Bay

Photos: Akumal by Alfonzo Buscemi, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Sarasota by Oleg Yunakov, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Akumal or Sarasota?

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

  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips
  • wellness

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

Choose Sarasota for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Sarasota’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, Sarasota 86: Akumal leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Akumal 28, Sarasota 44: Sarasota leads by 16 points.
Culture & sights. Akumal 6, Sarasota 45: Sarasota leads by 39 points.
Nightlife. Akumal 7, Sarasota 28: Sarasota leads by 21 points.
Nature & outdoors. Akumal 77, Sarasota 55: Akumal leads by 22 points.
Day trips. Akumal 68, Sarasota 50: Akumal leads by 18 points.
Good for families. Akumal 70, Sarasota 68: Akumal leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Akumal 18, Sarasota 28: Sarasota leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Akumal 7, Sarasota 40: Sarasota leads by 33 points.
Affordability. Akumal 36, Sarasota 30: Akumal leads by 6 points.
Live music & performing arts. Akumal 4, Sarasota 58: Sarasota leads by 54 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Akumal 55, Sarasota 45: Akumal leads by 10 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Akumal
39match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and day trips with your weighting.

Sarasota
Best match
48match

Wins on live music and the arts and culture and sights 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

Sarasota in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
195 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
AkumalSarasota

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.

Sarasota 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.

Sarasota's sunshine is measured 70 km from the centre, at Tampa International Airport.

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. Sarasota: 2006-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Sarasota / Ballentine Manor (6.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAkumalSarasota
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya-
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation11 m7 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)85 km from centre135 non-stop destinationsSarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ)7 km from centre70 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureAkumalSarasota
City population2,15454,842
People per km²-840
Museums within 10 km03
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months8 months

Where else could you go?

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