VacationSelector
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
GlasgowKelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
The town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture, Playa del Carmen
Playa del CarmenThe town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture

Photos: Glasgow by Stinglehammer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Glasgow 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 Glasgow for

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

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

Choose Playa del Carmen for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • families

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. Glasgow 14, Playa del Carmen 88: Playa del Carmen leads by 74 points.
Food & drink. Glasgow and Playa del Carmen are level on 52.
Culture & sights. Glasgow 62, Playa del Carmen 12: Glasgow leads by 50 points.
Nightlife. Glasgow and Playa del Carmen are level on 66.
Nature & outdoors. Glasgow 75, Playa del Carmen 74: Glasgow leads by 1 points.
Day trips. Glasgow 76, Playa del Carmen 72: Glasgow leads by 4 points.
Good for families. Glasgow 58, Playa del Carmen 78: Playa del Carmen leads by 20 points.
Getting around. Glasgow 66, Playa del Carmen 55: Glasgow leads by 11 points.
Shopping & style. Glasgow 64, Playa del Carmen 38: Glasgow leads by 26 points.
Affordability. Glasgow 46, Playa del Carmen 52: Playa del Carmen leads by 6 points.
Live music & performing arts. Glasgow 72, Playa del Carmen 22: Glasgow leads by 50 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Glasgow 28, Playa del Carmen 54: Playa del Carmen leads by 26 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Glasgow and Playa del Carmen.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Glasgow
57match

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

Playa del Carmen
55match

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.

Glasgow in July

19 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
85 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
15 °Csea
17 hdaylight a day

Playa del Carmen in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
96 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
GlasgowPlaya del Carmen

Where the figures come from

Glasgow 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.

Glasgow's sunshine is measured 90 km from the centre, at Eskdalemuir.

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. Glasgow: 1991-2020 normals, Glasgow Airport (11.5 km from centre). Playa del Carmen: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureGlasgowPlaya del Carmen
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-5
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation21 m8 m
Main airportGlasgow Airport (GLA)11 km from centre95 non-stop destinationsCancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre137 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureGlasgowPlaya del Carmen
City population626,410304,942
People per km²190-
Museums within 10 km290
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
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 Glasgow or Playa del Carmen somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national 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.