VacationSelector
Painted wooden houses under palms in Key West, Key West
Key WestPainted wooden houses under palms in Key West
A boat in the swell beside El Arco, Los Cabos
Los CabosA boat in the swell beside El Arco

Photos: Key West by Dominik Gryzbon, Pexels License; Los Cabos by Jules Clark, Pexels License.

Key West 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 Key West for

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

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

Choose Los Cabos for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

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. Key West 60, Los Cabos 84: Los Cabos leads by 24 points.
Food & drink. Key West 45, Los Cabos 54: Los Cabos leads by 9 points.
Culture & sights. Key West 40, Los Cabos 20: Key West leads by 20 points.
Nightlife. Key West 62, Los Cabos 66: Los Cabos leads by 4 points.
Nature & outdoors. Key West 62, Los Cabos 78: Los Cabos leads by 16 points.
Day trips. Key West 28, Los Cabos 42: Los Cabos leads by 14 points.
Good for families. Key West 40, Los Cabos 55: Los Cabos leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Key West 62, Los Cabos 28: Key West leads by 34 points.
Shopping & style. Key West 30, Los Cabos 36: Los Cabos leads by 6 points.
Affordability. Key West 15, Los Cabos 28: Los Cabos leads by 13 points.
Live music & performing arts. Key West 38, Los Cabos 12: Key West leads by 26 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Key West 40, Los Cabos 58: Los Cabos leads by 18 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Key West and Los Cabos.

Your match

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

Key West
44match

Wins on getting around and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Los Cabos
Best match
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.

Key West in July

32 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
84 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Los Cabos in July

30 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
19 mmrain in the month
26 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
Key WestLos Cabos

Where the figures come from

Key West's temperatures are measured 69 km from the centre, at Key West Airport.

Key West 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.

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. Key West: 1991-2020 normals, Key West Airport (69.1 km from centre). Los Cabos: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureKey WestLos Cabos
Official language-Spanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-7
Emergency number911911
Elevation4 m11 m
Main airportKey West International Airport (EYW)2 km from centre24 non-stop destinationsLos Cabos International Airport (SJD)35 km from centre54 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureKey WestLos Cabos
City population26,444202,694
People per km²1,407-
Museums within 10 km71
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Key West 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.