VacationSelector
The coastline of the Hotel Zone, Cancun
CancunThe coastline of the Hotel Zone
Castel Sant'Elmo and the Certosa di San Martino, Naples
NaplesCastel Sant'Elmo and the Certosa di San Martino

Photos: Cancun by Tellez Erik, Pexels License; Naples by pietro scerrato, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Cancun or Naples?

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
  • families
  • wellness

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

Choose Naples for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Naples’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, Naples 50: Cancun leads by 48 points.
Food & drink. Cancun 44, Naples 83: Naples leads by 39 points.
Culture & sights. Cancun 15, Naples 87: Naples leads by 72 points.
Nightlife. Cancun 70, Naples 60: Cancun leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cancun 66, Naples 77: Naples leads by 11 points.
Day trips. Cancun 65, Naples 96: Naples leads by 31 points.
Good for families. Cancun 78, Naples 45: Cancun leads by 33 points.
Getting around. Cancun 25, Naples 54: Naples leads by 29 points.
Shopping & style. Cancun 40, Naples 60: Naples leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Cancun 46, Naples 63: Naples leads by 17 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cancun 17, Naples 66: Naples leads by 49 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cancun 55, Naples 44: Cancun leads by 11 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cancun and Naples.

Your match

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

Cancun
52match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Naples
Best match
65match

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

Naples in July

30 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
23 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
CancunNaples

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.

Naples 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.

Naples's sunshine is measured 28 km from the centre, at Grazzanise.

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. Naples: 2005-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Napoli / Capodichino (4.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCancunNaples
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaItalian
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation5 m17 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)14 km from centre137 non-stop destinationsNaples International Airport (NAP)7 km from centre131 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureCancunNaples
City population888,797913,462
People per km²-7,676
Museums within 10 km165
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km05
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 Naples 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. 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.