VacationSelector
The coastline of the Hotel Zone, Cancun
CancunThe coastline of the Hotel Zone
The floating torii of Itsukushima at Miyajima, Hiroshima
HiroshimaThe floating torii of Itsukushima at Miyajima

Photos: Cancun by Tellez Erik, Pexels License; Hiroshima by Guohua Song, Pexels License.

Cancun or Hiroshima?

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

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • families

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

Choose Hiroshima for

  • getting around
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Hiroshima’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, Hiroshima 30: Cancun leads by 68 points.
Food & drink. Cancun 44, Hiroshima 66: Hiroshima leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Cancun 15, Hiroshima 60: Hiroshima leads by 45 points.
Nightlife. Cancun 70, Hiroshima 45: Cancun leads by 25 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cancun 66, Hiroshima 62: Cancun leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Cancun 65, Hiroshima 80: Hiroshima leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Cancun 78, Hiroshima 60: Cancun leads by 18 points.
Getting around. Cancun 25, Hiroshima 74: Hiroshima leads by 49 points.
Shopping & style. Cancun 40, Hiroshima 52: Hiroshima leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Cancun 46, Hiroshima 58: Hiroshima leads by 12 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cancun 17, Hiroshima 38: Hiroshima leads by 21 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cancun 55, Hiroshima 50: Cancun leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cancun and Hiroshima.

Your match

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

Cancun
52match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Hiroshima
Best match
56match

Wins on getting around 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
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Hiroshima in July

31 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
299 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
24 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
CancunHiroshima

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. Cancun: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Hiroshima: 1991-2020 normals, Hiroshima (1.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCancunHiroshima
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaJapanese
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Yen (JPY)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the region
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+9
Emergency number911Police 110, fire 119
Elevation5 m3 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)14 km from centre137 non-stop destinationsHiroshima Airport (HIJ)43 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureCancunHiroshima
City population888,7971,198,021
People per km²-1,324
Museums within 10 km118
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cancun or Hiroshima 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.