VacationSelector
The coastline of the Hotel Zone, Cancun
CancunThe coastline of the Hotel Zone
The clock tower in the old town, Kotor
KotorThe clock tower in the old town

Photos: Cancun by Tellez Erik, Pexels License; Kotor by Muhammed Fatih Beki, Pexels License.

Cancun or Kotor?

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

  • families
  • beaches
  • nightlife

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

Choose Kotor for

  • culture and sights
  • getting around
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Kotor’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, Kotor 57: Cancun leads by 41 points.
Food & drink. Cancun 44, Kotor 37: Cancun leads by 7 points.
Culture & sights. Cancun 15, Kotor 55: Kotor leads by 40 points.
Nightlife. Cancun 70, Kotor 30: Cancun leads by 40 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cancun 66, Kotor 80: Kotor leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Cancun 65, Kotor 72: Kotor leads by 7 points.
Good for families. Cancun 78, Kotor 36: Cancun leads by 42 points.
Getting around. Cancun 25, Kotor 48: Kotor leads by 23 points.
Shopping & style. Cancun 40, Kotor 20: Cancun leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Cancun 46, Kotor 57: Kotor leads by 11 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cancun 17, Kotor 20: Kotor leads by 3 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cancun 55, Kotor 24: Cancun leads by 31 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cancun and Kotor.

Your match

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

Cancun
Best match
52match

Wins on families and beaches with your weighting.

Kotor
45match

Wins on culture and sights and getting around 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

Kotor in July

31 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
39 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
CancunKotor

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.

Kotor 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.

Kotor's sunshine is measured 42 km from the centre, at Podgorica-Grad.

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. Kotor: 1991-2020 normals, Tivat (4.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCancunKotor
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaMontenegrin
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation5 m10 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)14 km from centre137 non-stop destinationsTivat Airport (TIV)5 km from centre42 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days-

By the numbers

MeasureCancunKotor
City population888,797562
Museums within 10 km13
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km03
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cancun or Kotor 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.