VacationSelector
The Umayyad Palace on the Amman Citadel, Amman
AmmanThe Umayyad Palace on the Amman Citadel
El Castillo above the beach at Tulum, Tulum
TulumEl Castillo above the beach at Tulum

Photos: Amman by AXP Photography, Pexels License; Tulum by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Amman or Tulum?

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 Amman for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • day trips

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

Choose Tulum for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Tulum’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. Amman 22, Tulum 88: Tulum leads by 66 points.
Food & drink. Amman 62, Tulum 52: Amman leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Amman 54, Tulum 30: Amman leads by 24 points.
Nightlife. Amman 32, Tulum 60: Tulum leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Amman 45, Tulum 76: Tulum leads by 31 points.
Day trips. Amman 80, Tulum 68: Amman leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Amman 38, Tulum 60: Tulum leads by 22 points.
Getting around. Amman 30, Tulum 25: Amman leads by 5 points.
Shopping & style. Amman 42, Tulum 35: Amman leads by 7 points.
Affordability. Amman 58, Tulum 30: Amman leads by 28 points.
Live music & performing arts. Amman 27, Tulum 15: Amman leads by 12 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Amman 55, Tulum 85: Tulum leads by 30 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Amman
45match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Tulum
Best match
52match

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

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Amman in July

33 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Tulum in July

30 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
116 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
AmmanTulum

Where the figures come from

Amman 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.

Amman's sunshine is measured 55 km from the centre, at Mafraq.

Tulum 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. Amman: 1994-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Amman Airport (6 km from centre). Tulum: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureAmmanTulum
Official languageArabicSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyJordanian Dinar (JOD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsBCFGJ230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+3UTC-5
Emergency number911911
Elevation776 m5 m
Main airportQueen Alia International Airport (AMM)26 km from centre98 non-stop destinationsFelipe Carrillo Puerto International Airport Tulum (TQO)21 km from centre11 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-9 days

By the numbers

MeasureAmmanTulum
City population4,007,52633,374
People per km²2,385-
Museums within 10 km80
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km30
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Amman or Tulum somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.