VacationSelector
The coastline of the Hotel Zone, Cancun
CancunThe coastline of the Hotel Zone
The colonnaded court of Luxor Temple, Luxor
LuxorThe colonnaded court of Luxor Temple

Photos: Cancun by Tellez Erik, Pexels License; Luxor by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Cancun or Luxor?

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 Luxor for

  • culture and sights
  • prices
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Luxor’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, Luxor 6: Cancun leads by 92 points.
Food & drink. Cancun 44, Luxor 30: Cancun leads by 14 points.
Culture & sights. Cancun 15, Luxor 95: Luxor leads by 80 points.
Nightlife. Cancun 70, Luxor 10: Cancun leads by 60 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cancun 66, Luxor 32: Cancun leads by 34 points.
Day trips. Cancun 65, Luxor 62: Cancun leads by 3 points.
Good for families. Cancun 78, Luxor 30: Cancun leads by 48 points.
Getting around. Cancun 25, Luxor 35: Luxor leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Cancun 40, Luxor 25: Cancun leads by 15 points.
Affordability. Cancun 46, Luxor 90: Luxor leads by 44 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cancun 17, Luxor 10: Cancun leads by 7 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cancun 55, Luxor 28: Cancun leads by 27 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cancun and Luxor.

Your match

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

Cancun
Best match
52match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Luxor
38match

Wins on culture and sights and prices 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

Luxor in July

41 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
CancunLuxor

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.

Luxor 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. Luxor: 1998-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Luxor (6.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCancunLuxor
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaArabic
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Egyptian Pound (EGP)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number911Police 122, ambulance 123, fire 180
Elevation5 m89 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)14 km from centre137 non-stop destinationsLuxor International Airport (LXR)7 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureCancunLuxor
City population888,797202,232
People per km²-486
Museums within 10 km14
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cancun or Luxor 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.