VacationSelector
Durban
El Castillo above the beach at Tulum, Tulum
TulumEl Castillo above the beach at Tulum

Photos: Tulum by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Durban 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 Durban for

  • prices
  • live music and the arts
  • food and drink

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

Choose Tulum for

  • wellness
  • 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. Durban 80, Tulum 88: Tulum leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. Durban 60, Tulum 52: Durban leads by 8 points.
Culture & sights. Durban 38, Tulum 30: Durban leads by 8 points.
Nightlife. Durban 40, Tulum 60: Tulum leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Durban 68, Tulum 76: Tulum leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Durban 38, Tulum 68: Tulum leads by 30 points.
Good for families. Durban and Tulum are level on 60.
Getting around. Durban 20, Tulum 25: Tulum leads by 5 points.
Shopping & style. Durban 42, Tulum 35: Durban leads by 7 points.
Affordability. Durban 72, Tulum 30: Durban leads by 42 points.
Live music & performing arts. Durban 40, Tulum 15: Durban leads by 25 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Durban 30, Tulum 85: Tulum leads by 55 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Durban and Tulum.

Your match

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

Durban
49match

Wins on prices and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Tulum
Best match
52match

Wins on wellness 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.

Durban in July

23 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
44 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
22 °Csea
10 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
DurbanTulum

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. Durban: 1991-2020 normals, Durban, Durban International Airport (14.1 km from centre). Tulum: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureDurbanTulum
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign LanguageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyRand (ZAR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC-5
Emergency number112911
Elevation22 m5 m
Main airportKing Shaka International Airport (DUR)29 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsFelipe Carrillo Puerto International Airport Tulum (TQO)21 km from centre11 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureDurbanTulum
City population595,06133,374
People per km²2,634-
Museums within 10 km10
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Durban 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. 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.