VacationSelector
The cathedral and Great St. Martin on the Rhine, Cologne
CologneThe cathedral and Great St. Martin on the Rhine
A boat in the swell beside El Arco, Los Cabos
Los CabosA boat in the swell beside El Arco

Photos: Cologne by Jörg Braukmann, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Los Cabos by Jules Clark, Pexels License.

Cologne 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 Cologne for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • getting around

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

Choose Los Cabos for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • 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. Cologne 14, Los Cabos 84: Los Cabos leads by 70 points.
Food & drink. Cologne 52, Los Cabos 54: Los Cabos leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Cologne 67, Los Cabos 20: Cologne leads by 47 points.
Nightlife. Cologne and Los Cabos are level on 66.
Nature & outdoors. Cologne 56, Los Cabos 78: Los Cabos leads by 22 points.
Day trips. Cologne 80, Los Cabos 42: Cologne leads by 38 points.
Good for families. Cologne 70, Los Cabos 55: Cologne leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Cologne 74, Los Cabos 28: Cologne leads by 46 points.
Shopping & style. Cologne 57, Los Cabos 36: Cologne leads by 21 points.
Affordability. Cologne 46, Los Cabos 28: Cologne leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cologne 68, Los Cabos 12: Cologne leads by 56 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cologne 50, Los Cabos 58: Los Cabos leads by 8 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cologne and Los Cabos.

Your match

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

Cologne
Best match
58match

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

Los Cabos
47match

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

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Cologne in July

25 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
81 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
16 hdaylight a day

Los Cabos in July

30 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
19 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
26 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
CologneLos 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. Cologne: 1991-2020 normals, Köln-Stammheim (5.4 km from centre). Los Cabos: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureCologneLos Cabos
Official languageGermanSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-7
Emergency number112911
Elevation59 m11 m
Main airportCologne Bonn Airport (CGN)15 km from centre115 non-stop destinationsLos Cabos International Airport (SJD)35 km from centre54 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureCologneLos Cabos
City population1,025,523202,694
People per km²2,532-
Museums within 10 km401
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km30
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 Cologne 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. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.