VacationSelector
The Guggenheim Museum on the river, Bilbao
BilbaoThe Guggenheim Museum on the river
A boat in the swell beside El Arco, Los Cabos
Los CabosA boat in the swell beside El Arco

Photos: Bilbao by José Ligero Loarte, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Los Cabos by Jules Clark, Pexels License.

Bilbao 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 Bilbao for

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

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

Choose Los Cabos for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • nightlife

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. Bilbao 45, Los Cabos 84: Los Cabos leads by 39 points.
Food & drink. Bilbao 81, Los Cabos 54: Bilbao leads by 27 points.
Culture & sights. Bilbao 62, Los Cabos 20: Bilbao leads by 42 points.
Nightlife. Bilbao 54, Los Cabos 66: Los Cabos leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bilbao 75, Los Cabos 78: Los Cabos leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Bilbao 78, Los Cabos 42: Bilbao leads by 36 points.
Good for families. Bilbao and Los Cabos are level on 55.
Getting around. Bilbao 79, Los Cabos 28: Bilbao leads by 51 points.
Shopping & style. Bilbao 47, Los Cabos 36: Bilbao leads by 11 points.
Affordability. Bilbao 44, Los Cabos 28: Bilbao leads by 16 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bilbao 53, Los Cabos 12: Bilbao leads by 41 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bilbao 33, Los Cabos 58: Los Cabos leads by 25 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bilbao and Los Cabos.

Your match

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

Bilbao
Best match
59match

Wins on getting around and culture and sights with your weighting.

Los Cabos
47match

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.

Bilbao in July

25 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
54 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
21 °Csea
15 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

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
BilbaoLos 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. Bilbao: 1991-2020 normals, Bilbao / Sondica (4.1 km from centre). Los Cabos: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureBilbaoLos Cabos
Official languageSpanishSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-7
Emergency number112911
Elevation19 m11 m
Main airportBilbao Airport (BIO)5 km from centre73 non-stop destinationsLos Cabos International Airport (SJD)35 km from centre54 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureBilbaoLos Cabos
City population351,124202,694
People per km²8,440-
Museums within 10 km171
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °C1 month12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bilbao 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. 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.