Photos: Cape Town by Stephan Louis, Pexels License; Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped.
Cape Town or Playa del Carmen?
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 Cape Town for
- culture and sights
- live music and the arts
- nature and the outdoors
What lies behind each score is written up on Cape Town’s own page.
Choose Playa del Carmen for
- beaches
- families
- getting around
What lies behind each score is written up on Playa del Carmen’s own page.
Scoreboard
Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.
What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cape Town and Playa del Carmen.
Your match
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.
Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts with your weighting.
Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.
What matters to you?
When should you go?
Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.
Cape Town in July
Playa del Carmen in July
Daytime high, °C
Rainfall in the month, mm
Where the figures come from
Playa del Carmen 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. Cape Town: 1991-2020 normals, Cape Town Airport (17.5 km from centre). Playa del Carmen: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.
Before you go
| Measure | Cape Town | Playa del Carmen |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | English, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign Language | Spanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya |
| Currency | Rand (ZAR) | Mexican Peso (MXN) |
| Sockets | CMN230 V, 50 Hz | AB127 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Left | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+2 | UTC-5 |
| Emergency number | 112 | 911 |
| Elevation | 5 m | 8 m |
| Main airport | Cape Town International Airport (CPT)18 km from centre45 non-stop destinations | Cancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre137 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 9 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Cape Town | Playa del Carmen |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 3,776,313 | 304,942 |
| People per km² | 1,538 | - |
| Museums within 10 km | 22 | 0 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 3 | 0 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | None | 12 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cape Town or Playa del Carmen somewhere new.