VacationSelector
The coastline of the Hotel Zone, Cancun
CancunThe coastline of the Hotel Zone
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera

Photos: Cancun by Tellez Erik, Pexels License; Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License.

Cancun or Kyoto?

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 Kyoto for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Kyoto’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, Kyoto 15: Cancun leads by 83 points.
Food & drink. Cancun 44, Kyoto 85: Kyoto leads by 41 points.
Culture & sights. Cancun 15, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 81 points.
Nightlife. Cancun 70, Kyoto 35: Cancun leads by 35 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cancun 66, Kyoto 70: Kyoto leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Cancun 65, Kyoto 96: Kyoto leads by 31 points.
Good for families. Cancun 78, Kyoto 68: Cancun leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Cancun 25, Kyoto 72: Kyoto leads by 47 points.
Shopping & style. Cancun 40, Kyoto 72: Kyoto leads by 32 points.
Affordability. Cancun 46, Kyoto 50: Kyoto leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cancun 17, Kyoto 60: Kyoto leads by 43 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cancun 55, Kyoto 70: Kyoto leads by 15 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cancun and Kyoto.

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.

Kyoto
Best match
66match

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

Kyoto in July

31 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
225 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
CancunKyoto

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.

Kyoto's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Osaka.

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. Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCancunKyoto
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 m51 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)14 km from centre137 non-stop destinationsKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureCancunKyoto
City population888,7971,463,723
People per km²-1,768
Museums within 10 km177
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km04
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 Kyoto 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.