VacationSelector
Wat Chiang Man in the old city, Chiang Mai
Chiang MaiWat Chiang Man in the old city
El Castillo above the beach at Tulum, Tulum
TulumEl Castillo above the beach at Tulum

Photos: Chiang Mai by Gije Cho, Pexels License; Tulum by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Chiang Mai or Tulum?

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 Chiang Mai for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • shopping

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

Choose Tulum for

  • beaches
  • day trips
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Tulum’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. Chiang Mai 6, Tulum 88: Tulum leads by 82 points.
Food & drink. Chiang Mai 78, Tulum 52: Chiang Mai leads by 26 points.
Culture & sights. Chiang Mai 65, Tulum 30: Chiang Mai leads by 35 points.
Nightlife. Chiang Mai 45, Tulum 60: Tulum leads by 15 points.
Nature & outdoors. Chiang Mai 73, Tulum 76: Tulum leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Chiang Mai 48, Tulum 68: Tulum leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Chiang Mai 55, Tulum 60: Tulum leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Chiang Mai 38, Tulum 25: Chiang Mai leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Chiang Mai 62, Tulum 35: Chiang Mai leads by 27 points.
Affordability. Chiang Mai 90, Tulum 30: Chiang Mai leads by 60 points.
Live music & performing arts. Chiang Mai 30, Tulum 15: Chiang Mai leads by 15 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Chiang Mai 82, Tulum 85: Tulum leads by 3 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Chiang Mai and Tulum.

Your match

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

Chiang Mai
Best match
56match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Tulum
52match

Wins on beaches and day trips with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Chiang Mai in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
No seasea
13 hdaylight a day

Tulum in July

30 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
116 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Chiang MaiTulum

Where the figures come from

Tulum 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. Chiang Mai: 1991-2020 normals, Chiang Mai (0.6 km from centre). Tulum: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureChiang MaiTulum
Official languageThaiSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyBaht (THB)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsABCF220 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+7UTC-5
Emergency numberPolice 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199911
Elevation310 m5 m
Main airportChiang Mai International Airport (CNX)3 km from centre28 non-stop destinationsFelipe Carrillo Puerto International Airport Tulum (TQO)21 km from centre11 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-9 days

By the numbers

MeasureChiang MaiTulum
City population1,198,00033,374
People per km²2,958-
Museums within 10 km60
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Chiang Mai or Tulum 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. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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.