VacationSelector
Comares Tower and the Palace of Charles V, Alhambra, Granada
GranadaComares Tower and the Palace of Charles V, Alhambra
El Castillo above the beach at Tulum, Tulum
TulumEl Castillo above the beach at Tulum

Photos: Granada by Jebulon, CC0; Tulum by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Granada 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 Granada for

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

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

Choose Tulum for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • families

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. Granada 38, Tulum 88: Tulum leads by 50 points.
Food & drink. Granada 62, Tulum 52: Granada leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Granada 80, Tulum 30: Granada leads by 50 points.
Nightlife. Granada 58, Tulum 60: Tulum leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Granada 80, Tulum 76: Granada leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Granada 76, Tulum 68: Granada leads by 8 points.
Good for families. Granada 52, Tulum 60: Tulum leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Granada 68, Tulum 25: Granada leads by 43 points.
Shopping & style. Granada 40, Tulum 35: Granada leads by 5 points.
Affordability. Granada 63, Tulum 30: Granada leads by 33 points.
Live music & performing arts. Granada 58, Tulum 15: Granada leads by 43 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Granada 48, Tulum 85: Tulum leads by 37 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Granada and Tulum.

Your match

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

Granada
Best match
60match

Wins on culture and sights and getting around with your weighting.

Tulum
52match

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.

Granada in July

35 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
13 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 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
GranadaTulum

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. Granada: 1991-2020 normals, Granada / Caserío Hospicio (5 km from centre). Tulum: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureGranadaTulum
Official languageSpanishSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number112911
Elevation693 m5 m
Main airportF.G.L. Airport Granada-Jaén Airport (GRX)16 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsFelipe Carrillo Puerto International Airport Tulum (TQO)21 km from centre11 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureGranadaTulum
City population233,97533,374
People per km²2,659-
Museums within 10 km200
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 Granada 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. 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.