VacationSelector
The coastline of the Hotel Zone, Cancun
CancunThe coastline of the Hotel Zone
Bougainvillea and the dome of Agia Napa Cathedral, Limassol
LimassolBougainvillea and the dome of Agia Napa Cathedral

Photos: Cancun by Tellez Erik, Pexels License; Limassol by Julian Lupyan, CC0.

Cancun or Limassol?

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 Limassol for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Limassol’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, Limassol 77: Cancun leads by 21 points.
Food & drink. Cancun 44, Limassol 58: Limassol leads by 14 points.
Culture & sights. Cancun 15, Limassol 38: Limassol leads by 23 points.
Nightlife. Cancun 70, Limassol 50: Cancun leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cancun 66, Limassol 65: Cancun leads by 1 points.
Day trips. Cancun 65, Limassol 76: Limassol leads by 11 points.
Good for families. Cancun 78, Limassol 63: Cancun leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Cancun 25, Limassol 38: Limassol leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Cancun 40, Limassol 42: Limassol leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Cancun 46, Limassol 44: Cancun leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cancun 17, Limassol 32: Limassol leads by 15 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cancun 55, Limassol 42: Cancun leads by 13 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cancun and Limassol.

Your match

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

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Cancun
52match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Limassol
52match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts 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

Limassol in July

31 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
13 hsunshine a day
26 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
CancunLimassol

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.

Limassol 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.

Limassol's sunshine is measured 59 km from the centre, at Larnaca Airport.

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. Limassol: 1998-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Akrotiri (11.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCancunLimassol
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaTurkish, Greek, Modern Greek
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzG240 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation5 m10 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)14 km from centre137 non-stop destinationsLarnaca International Airport (LCA)58 km from centre112 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days17 days

By the numbers

MeasureCancunLimassol
City population888,797107,970
People per km²-2,405
Museums within 10 km12
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km03
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months6 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cancun or Limassol 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.