VacationSelector
The Guggenheim Museum on the river, Bilbao
BilbaoThe Guggenheim Museum on the river
The town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture, Playa del Carmen
Playa del CarmenThe town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture

Photos: Bilbao by José Ligero Loarte, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Bilbao or Playa del Carmen?

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

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • food and drink

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

Choose Playa del Carmen for

  • beaches
  • families
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Playa del Carmen’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, Playa del Carmen 88: Playa del Carmen leads by 43 points.
Food & drink. Bilbao 81, Playa del Carmen 52: Bilbao leads by 29 points.
Culture & sights. Bilbao 62, Playa del Carmen 12: Bilbao leads by 50 points.
Nightlife. Bilbao 54, Playa del Carmen 66: Playa del Carmen leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bilbao 75, Playa del Carmen 74: Bilbao leads by 1 points.
Day trips. Bilbao 78, Playa del Carmen 72: Bilbao leads by 6 points.
Good for families. Bilbao 55, Playa del Carmen 78: Playa del Carmen leads by 23 points.
Getting around. Bilbao 79, Playa del Carmen 55: Bilbao leads by 24 points.
Shopping & style. Bilbao 47, Playa del Carmen 38: Bilbao leads by 9 points.
Affordability. Bilbao 44, Playa del Carmen 52: Playa del Carmen leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bilbao 53, Playa del Carmen 22: Bilbao leads by 31 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bilbao 33, Playa del Carmen 54: Playa del Carmen leads by 21 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bilbao and Playa del Carmen.

Your match

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

Bilbao
Best match
59match

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

Playa del Carmen
55match

Wins on beaches and families 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

Playa del Carmen in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
96 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
BilbaoPlaya del Carmen

Where the figures come from

Playa del Carmen 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). Playa del Carmen: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureBilbaoPlaya del Carmen
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-5
Emergency number112911
Elevation19 m8 m
Main airportBilbao Airport (BIO)5 km from centre73 non-stop destinationsCancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre137 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureBilbaoPlaya del Carmen
City population351,124304,942
People per km²8,440-
Museums within 10 km170
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 Playa del Carmen 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.