VacationSelector
The pastel houses of Rainbow Row, Charleston
CharlestonThe pastel houses of Rainbow Row
A boat in the swell beside El Arco, Los Cabos
Los CabosA boat in the swell beside El Arco

Photos: Charleston by NealVickers, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Los Cabos by Jules Clark, Pexels License.

Charleston or Los Cabos?

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 Charleston for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • day trips

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

Choose Los Cabos for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • nightlife
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Los Cabos’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. Charleston 72, Los Cabos 84: Los Cabos leads by 12 points.
Food & drink. Charleston 72, Los Cabos 54: Charleston leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Charleston 64, Los Cabos 20: Charleston leads by 44 points.
Nightlife. Charleston 44, Los Cabos 66: Los Cabos leads by 22 points.
Nature & outdoors. Charleston 55, Los Cabos 78: Los Cabos leads by 23 points.
Day trips. Charleston 62, Los Cabos 42: Charleston leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Charleston 60, Los Cabos 55: Charleston leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Charleston 46, Los Cabos 28: Charleston leads by 18 points.
Shopping & style. Charleston 55, Los Cabos 36: Charleston leads by 19 points.
Affordability. Charleston 27, Los Cabos 28: Los Cabos leads by 1 points.
Live music & performing arts. Charleston 42, Los Cabos 12: Charleston leads by 30 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Charleston 40, Los Cabos 58: Los Cabos leads by 18 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Charleston and Los Cabos.

Your match

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

Charleston
Best match
53match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Los Cabos
47match

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

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Charleston in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
167 mmrain in the month
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Los Cabos in July

30 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
19 mmrain in the month
26 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
CharlestonLos Cabos

Where the figures come from

Los Cabos 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. Charleston: 1991-2020 normals, Charleston Airport (16.1 km from centre). Los Cabos: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureCharlestonLos Cabos
Official language-Spanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-7
Emergency number911911
Elevation6 m11 m
Main airportCharleston International Airport (CHS)16 km from centre56 non-stop destinationsLos Cabos International Airport (SJD)35 km from centre54 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureCharlestonLos Cabos
City population150,227202,694
People per km²532-
Museums within 10 km191
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C6 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Charleston or Los Cabos somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.