VacationSelector
The Scott Monument and Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh
EdinburghThe Scott Monument and Princes Street Gardens
A boat in the swell beside El Arco, Los Cabos
Los CabosA boat in the swell beside El Arco

Photos: Edinburgh by Carlos Delgado, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Los Cabos by Jules Clark, Pexels License.

Edinburgh 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 Edinburgh for

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

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

Choose Los Cabos for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • nightlife

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. Edinburgh 22, Los Cabos 84: Los Cabos leads by 62 points.
Food & drink. Edinburgh 53, Los Cabos 54: Los Cabos leads by 1 points.
Culture & sights. Edinburgh 75, Los Cabos 20: Edinburgh leads by 55 points.
Nightlife. Edinburgh 50, Los Cabos 66: Los Cabos leads by 16 points.
Nature & outdoors. Edinburgh 75, Los Cabos 78: Los Cabos leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Edinburgh 75, Los Cabos 42: Edinburgh leads by 33 points.
Good for families. Edinburgh 62, Los Cabos 55: Edinburgh leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Edinburgh 74, Los Cabos 28: Edinburgh leads by 46 points.
Shopping & style. Edinburgh 50, Los Cabos 36: Edinburgh leads by 14 points.
Affordability. Edinburgh 30, Los Cabos 28: Edinburgh leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Edinburgh 72, Los Cabos 12: Edinburgh leads by 60 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Edinburgh 34, Los Cabos 58: Los Cabos leads by 24 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Edinburgh and Los Cabos.

Your match

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

Edinburgh
Best match
56match

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

Los Cabos
47match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Edinburgh in July

19 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
66 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
14 °Csea
17 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
EdinburghLos Cabos

Where the figures come from

Edinburgh has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Edinburgh's sunshine is measured 52 km from the centre, at Leuchars.

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. Edinburgh: 1991-2020 normals, Edinburgh Airport (10 km from centre). Los Cabos: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureEdinburghLos Cabos
Official languageEnglishSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-7
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation47 m11 m
Main airportEdinburgh Airport (EDI)11 km from centre163 non-stop destinationsLos Cabos International Airport (SJD)35 km from centre54 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureEdinburghLos Cabos
City population488,050202,694
People per km²1,884-
Museums within 10 km321
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km30
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Edinburgh 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.