VacationSelector
The coastline of the Hotel Zone, Cancun
CancunThe coastline of the Hotel Zone
The 1933 courthouse in downtown Fort Myers, now an arts centre, Fort Myers
Fort MyersThe 1933 courthouse in downtown Fort Myers, now an arts centre

Photos: Cancun by Tellez Erik, Pexels License; Fort Myers by Ebyabe, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Cancun or Fort Myers?

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 Cancun for

  • nightlife
  • beaches
  • wellness

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

Choose Fort Myers for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Fort Myers’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. Cancun 98, Fort Myers 77: Cancun leads by 21 points.
Food & drink. Cancun 44, Fort Myers 40: Cancun leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Cancun 15, Fort Myers 32: Fort Myers leads by 17 points.
Nightlife. Cancun 70, Fort Myers 32: Cancun leads by 38 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cancun 66, Fort Myers 63: Cancun leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Cancun 65, Fort Myers 50: Cancun leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Cancun 78, Fort Myers 62: Cancun leads by 16 points.
Getting around. Cancun 25, Fort Myers 15: Cancun leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Cancun 40, Fort Myers 38: Cancun leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Cancun 46, Fort Myers 38: Cancun leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cancun 17, Fort Myers 36: Fort Myers leads by 19 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cancun 55, Fort Myers 35: Cancun leads by 20 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cancun and Fort Myers.

Your match

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

Cancun
Best match
52match

Wins on nightlife and beaches with your weighting.

Fort Myers
43match

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

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Cancun in July

30 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
89 mmrain in the month
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Fort Myers in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
220 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
CancunFort Myers

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.

Fort Myers has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cancun: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Fort Myers: 1991-2020 normals, Fort Myers / Page Park (4.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCancunFort Myers
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya-
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation5 m3 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)14 km from centre137 non-stop destinationsSouthwest Florida International Airport (RSW)12 km from centre79 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureCancunFort Myers
City population888,79786,395
People per km²-681
Museums within 10 km13
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months10 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cancun or Fort Myers somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.