VacationSelector
Wat Pho, Bangkok
BangkokWat Pho
El Castillo above the beach at Tulum, Tulum
TulumEl Castillo above the beach at Tulum

Photos: Bangkok by Lu Zhao, Pexels License; Tulum by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Bangkok 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 Bangkok for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • shopping

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

Choose Tulum for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • families

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. Bangkok 12, Tulum 88: Tulum leads by 76 points.
Food & drink. Bangkok 95, Tulum 52: Bangkok leads by 43 points.
Culture & sights. Bangkok 80, Tulum 30: Bangkok leads by 50 points.
Nightlife. Bangkok 85, Tulum 60: Bangkok leads by 25 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bangkok 25, Tulum 76: Tulum leads by 51 points.
Day trips. Bangkok 72, Tulum 68: Bangkok leads by 4 points.
Good for families. Bangkok 50, Tulum 60: Tulum leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Bangkok 50, Tulum 25: Bangkok leads by 25 points.
Shopping & style. Bangkok 80, Tulum 35: Bangkok leads by 45 points.
Affordability. Bangkok 85, Tulum 30: Bangkok leads by 55 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bangkok 52, Tulum 15: Bangkok leads by 37 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bangkok 75, Tulum 85: Tulum leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bangkok and Tulum.

Your match

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

Bangkok
Best match
63match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Tulum
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.

Bangkok in July

34 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
184 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 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

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
BangkokTulum

Where the figures come from

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. Bangkok: 1991-2020 normals, Bangkok (5.7 km from centre). Tulum: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureBangkokTulum
Official languageThaiSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyBaht (THB)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsABCF220 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+7UTC-5
Emergency numberPolice 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199911
Elevation2 m5 m
Main airportSuvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)26 km from centre150 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

MeasureBangkokTulum
City population5,676,64833,374
People per km²3,619-
Museums within 10 km590
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bangkok 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). 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. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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.