VacationSelector
Titanic Belfast, Belfast
BelfastTitanic Belfast
The coastline of the Hotel Zone, Cancun
CancunThe coastline of the Hotel Zone

Photos: Belfast by Nico Kaiser, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Cancun by Tellez Erik, Pexels License.

Belfast or Cancun?

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 Belfast for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • getting around

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

Choose Cancun for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Cancun’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. Belfast 20, Cancun 98: Cancun leads by 78 points.
Food & drink. Belfast 50, Cancun 44: Belfast leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Belfast 55, Cancun 15: Belfast leads by 40 points.
Nightlife. Belfast 50, Cancun 70: Cancun leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Belfast 74, Cancun 66: Belfast leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Belfast 66, Cancun 65: Belfast leads by 1 points.
Good for families. Belfast 58, Cancun 78: Cancun leads by 20 points.
Getting around. Belfast 62, Cancun 25: Belfast leads by 37 points.
Shopping & style. Belfast 45, Cancun 40: Belfast leads by 5 points.
Affordability. Belfast 48, Cancun 46: Belfast leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Belfast 55, Cancun 17: Belfast leads by 38 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Belfast 25, Cancun 55: Cancun leads by 30 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Belfast and Cancun.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Belfast
51match

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

Cancun
52match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Belfast in July

19 °Cdaytime high
12 °Cnight-time low
74 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
12 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

Cancun in July

30 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
89 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
BelfastCancun

Where the figures come from

Cancun 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. Belfast: 1991-2020 normals, Belfast / Aldergrove Airport (19.4 km from centre). Cancun: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureBelfastCancun
Official languageEnglishSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation3 m5 m
Main airportGeorge Best Belfast City Airport (BHD)4 km from centre25 non-stop destinationsCancún International Airport (CUN)14 km from centre137 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureBelfastCancun
City population345,006888,797
People per km²3,000-
Museums within 10 km81
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Belfast or Cancun 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). 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. 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.