VacationSelector

Cancun or Macau?

Two destinations compared in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.

The coastline of the Hotel Zone, Cancun
Cancun

Photo: Tellez Erik, Pexels License

The Grand Lisboa above the Macau skyline, Macau
Macau

Photo: tian Jin, Pexels License

Your match

Cancun
✓ Best match
52
match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Macau
46
match

Wins on culture and sights and getting around with your weighting.

What matters to you?

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.

Scoreboard

Our verdict on each category, scored 0 to 100 against fixed benchmark cities.

CancunMacau
Beaches & swimming. Cancun leads by 74 points.74
Food & drink. Macau leads by 33 points.33
Culture & sights. Macau leads by 47 points.47
Nightlife. Cancun leads by 30 points.30
Nature & outdoors. Cancun leads by 61 points.61
Day trips. Cancun leads by 13 points.13
Good for families. Cancun leads by 30 points.30
Getting around. Macau leads by 35 points.35
Shopping & style. Macau leads by 18 points.18
Affordability. Cancun leads by 2 points.2
Live music & performing arts. Macau leads by 19 points.19
Wellness & relaxation. Cancun leads by 15 points.15
0255075100

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

When should you go?

Pick the month you can travel and see both cities side by side. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Climate figures for July
JulyCancunMacau
Daytime high30 °C32 °C
Night-time low26 °C26 °C
Rainfall in the month89 mm281 mm
SunshineNo figure7 hours a day
Sea temperature29 °C29 °C
Daylight13 hours a day13 hours a day

The whole year

Each row is shaded against that destination’s own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that figure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Cancun
26
27
28
29
30
30
30
30
30
29
27
27
Macau
19
19
22
25
29
31
32
32
31
29
25
20
Sea temperature, °C
Cancun
27
26
26
27
28
28
29
29
29
29
28
27
Macau
19
19
20
23
26
28
29
29
28
27
24
21
Rainfall, mm
Cancun
63
50
38
41
92
181
89
114
166
224
124
68
Macau
34
42
78
160
285
369
281
338
233
71
38
32
Daylight, hours per day
Cancun
11
11
12
13
13
13
13
13
12
12
11
11
Macau
11
11
12
13
13
14
13
13
12
12
11
11
Sunshine, hours per day
Cancun
No sunshine record
Macau
4
3
3
3
4
5
7
6
6
6
5
5

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. Macau: 1991-2020 normals, Taipa (3.9 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromCancunMacau
Mexico CityMEX, NLU, TLC
2 h 10 m
€110-128
CUN · 14 km
17 h 15 m
no fares
SZX · 57 km
Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY
4 h 40 m
€319-382
1 stop
CUN · 14 km
14 h 25 m
no fares
HKG · 41 km
TorontoYYZ, YHM, YTZ
3 h 45 m
€321-392
CUN · 14 km
15 h 25 m
no fares
HKG · 41 km
ChicagoORD, MDW, DPA, PWK +1
3 h 25 m
€313-363
1 stop
CUN · 14 km
15 h 25 m
no fares
HKG · 41 km
New YorkJFK, EWR, LGA
3 h 35 m
€328-337
CUN · 14 km
15 h 55 m
no fares
HKG · 41 km
MadridMAD
10 h 0 m
€721-977
CUN · 14 km
13 h 0 m
no fares
HKG · 41 km
LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2
10 h 0 m
no fares
CUN · 14 km
12 h 0 m
€570-666
1 stop
HKG · 41 km
BostonBOS, PSM
3 h 55 m
€345-392
1 stop
CUN · 14 km
15 h 45 m
no fares
HKG · 41 km
DallasDFW, DAL, AFW
2 h 35 m
€292-400
1 stop
CUN · 14 km
16 h 0 m
no fares
HKG · 41 km
VancouverYVR, YDT
5 h 55 m
€287-406
2 stops
CUN · 14 km
12 h 45 m
no fares
HKG · 41 km

The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-08 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.

Before you go

MeasureCancunMacau
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaPortuguese, Cantonese, Standard Chinese
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Pataca (MOP)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzFGM220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+8
Emergency number911999
Elevation5 m22 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)14 km from centre137 non-stop destinationsMacau International Airport (MFM)7 km from centre41 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days-

By the numbers

MeasureCancunMacau
City population888,797682,100
People per km²-5,916
Museums within 10 km128
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months8 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cancun or Macau 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. 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. Typical fares from Travelpayouts (Aviasales data). Route-level air passenger statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate and flight figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-27. Typical prices can be up to 7 days old. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.