VacationSelector
The Texas State Capitol under a blue sky, Austin
AustinThe Texas State Capitol under a blue sky
A boat in the swell beside El Arco, Los Cabos
Los CabosA boat in the swell beside El Arco

Photos: Austin by LoneStarMike, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Los Cabos by Jules Clark, Pexels License.

Austin or Los Cabos?

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 Austin for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • day trips

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

Choose Los Cabos for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Los Cabos’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. Austin 30, Los Cabos 84: Los Cabos leads by 54 points.
Food & drink. Austin 66, Los Cabos 54: Austin leads by 12 points.
Culture & sights. Austin 40, Los Cabos 20: Austin leads by 20 points.
Nightlife. Austin 65, Los Cabos 66: Los Cabos leads by 1 points.
Nature & outdoors. Austin 57, Los Cabos 78: Los Cabos leads by 21 points.
Day trips. Austin 58, Los Cabos 42: Austin leads by 16 points.
Good for families. Austin and Los Cabos are level on 55.
Getting around. Austin 30, Los Cabos 28: Austin leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Austin 45, Los Cabos 36: Austin leads by 9 points.
Affordability. Austin 33, Los Cabos 28: Austin leads by 5 points.
Live music & performing arts. Austin 77, Los Cabos 12: Austin leads by 65 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Austin 40, Los Cabos 58: Los Cabos leads by 18 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Austin and Los Cabos.

Your match

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

Austin
Best match
50match

Wins on live music and the arts and culture and sights with your weighting.

Los Cabos
47match

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.

Austin in July

36 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
49 mmrain in the month
10 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Los Cabos in July

30 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
19 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
26 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
AustinLos Cabos

Where the figures come from

Los Cabos 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. Austin: 1991-2020 normals, Camp Mabry/Austin City Asos (3.7 km from centre). Los Cabos: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureAustinLos Cabos
Official language-Spanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6, UTC-5 in summerUTC-7
Emergency number911911
Elevation149 m11 m
Main airportAustin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS)13 km from centre91 non-stop destinationsLos Cabos International Airport (SJD)35 km from centre54 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureAustinLos Cabos
City population961,855202,694
People per km²1,217-
Museums within 10 km211
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Austin or Los Cabos 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). 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. 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. 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.