VacationSelector
A dhow below the towers of West Bay, Doha
DohaA dhow below the towers of West Bay
The town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture, Playa del Carmen
Playa del CarmenThe town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture

Photos: Doha by Gregory Hawken Kramer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Doha 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 Doha for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Playa del Carmen for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips
  • nightlife

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.

Beaches & swimming. Doha 45, Playa del Carmen 88: Playa del Carmen leads by 43 points.
Food & drink. Doha 55, Playa del Carmen 52: Doha leads by 3 points.
Culture & sights. Doha 55, Playa del Carmen 12: Doha leads by 43 points.
Nightlife. Doha 20, Playa del Carmen 66: Playa del Carmen leads by 46 points.
Nature & outdoors. Doha 7, Playa del Carmen 74: Playa del Carmen leads by 67 points.
Day trips. Doha 5, Playa del Carmen 72: Playa del Carmen leads by 67 points.
Good for families. Doha 60, Playa del Carmen 78: Playa del Carmen leads by 18 points.
Getting around. Doha 45, Playa del Carmen 55: Playa del Carmen leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Doha 60, Playa del Carmen 38: Doha leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Doha 38, Playa del Carmen 52: Playa del Carmen leads by 14 points.
Live music & performing arts. Doha 30, Playa del Carmen 22: Doha leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Doha 38, Playa del Carmen 54: Playa del Carmen leads by 16 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Doha and Playa del Carmen.

Your match

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

Doha
38match

Wins on culture and sights and shopping with your weighting.

Playa del Carmen
Best match
55match

Wins on nature and the outdoors 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.

Doha in July

43 °Cdaytime high
33 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
33 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Playa del Carmen in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
96 mmrain in the month
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
DohaPlaya del Carmen

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. Doha: 1991-2020 normals, Doha International Airport (5.5 km from centre). Playa del Carmen: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureDohaPlaya del Carmen
Official languageArabicSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyQatari Rial (QAR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsG240 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+3UTC-5
Emergency number999911
Elevation0 m8 m
Main airportHamad International Airport (DOH)8 km from centre195 non-stop destinationsCancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre137 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-9 days

By the numbers

MeasureDohaPlaya del Carmen
City population1,186,023304,942
People per km²8,985-
Museums within 10 km60
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C9 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Doha or Playa del Carmen 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). 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. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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.