VacationSelector

Cancun or Ubud?

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

Rice terraces and palms at Tegallalang, Ubud
Ubud

Photo: Pinterpandai, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped

Your match

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Cancun
52
match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Ubud
54
match

Wins on culture and sights and wellness 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.

CancunUbud
Beaches & swimming. Cancun leads by 58 points.58
Food & drink. Ubud leads by 11 points.11
Culture & sights. Ubud leads by 43 points.43
Nightlife. Cancun leads by 56 points.56
Nature & outdoors. Ubud leads by 10 points.10
Day trips. Ubud leads by 3 points.3
Good for families. Cancun leads by 34 points.34
Getting around. Cancun leads by 15 points.15
Shopping & style. Ubud leads by 10 points.10
Affordability. Ubud leads by 36 points.36
Live music & performing arts. Ubud leads by 38 points.38
Wellness & relaxation. Ubud leads by 41 points.41
0255075100

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

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
JulyCancunUbud
Daytime high30 °C29 °C
Night-time low26 °C24 °C
Rainfall in the month89 mm27 mm
SunshineNo figure9 hours a day
Sea temperature29 °C27 °C
Daylight13 hours a day12 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
Ubud
31
31
31
31
31
30
29
29
30
31
32
31
Sea temperature, °C
Cancun
27
26
26
27
28
28
29
29
29
29
28
27
Ubud
29
29
29
29
28
28
27
26
27
27
28
29
Rainfall, mm
Cancun
63
50
38
41
92
181
89
114
166
224
124
68
Ubud
396
289
222
125
76
38
27
12
30
74
132
295
Daylight, hours per day
Cancun
11
11
12
13
13
13
13
13
12
12
11
11
Ubud
13
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
13
13
Sunshine, hours per day
Cancun
No sunshine record
Ubud
7
6
7
8
9
8
9
9
9
9
8
6

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.

Ubud's temperatures are measured 29 km from the centre, at Denpasar / Ngurah-Rai.

Ubud's station stands 209 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

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. Ubud: 1991-2020 normals, Denpasar / Ngurah-Rai (29 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromCancunUbud
FrankfurtFRA, HHN
10 h 45 m
€657-706
1 stop
CUN · 14 km
14 h 45 m
€655-1139
1 stop
DPS · 29 km
AmsterdamAMS
10 h 25 m
no fares
CUN · 14 km
15 h 0 m
€615-646
DPS · 29 km
WarsawWAW, WMI
11 h 40 m
no fares
CUN · 14 km
13 h 40 m
€782-910
3 stops
DPS · 29 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
12 h 55 m
no fares
CUN · 14 km
12 h 50 m
€633-726
DPS · 29 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 2026-09 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

MeasureCancunUbud
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaIndonesian
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Rupiah (IDR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCF50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+8
Emergency number911112
Elevation5 m210 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)14 km from centre137 non-stop destinationsDenpasar I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport (DPS)29 km from centre63 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days-

By the numbers

MeasureCancunUbud
City population888,797-
Museums within 10 km114
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

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