VacationSelector
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera
The town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture, Playa del Carmen
Playa del CarmenThe town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture

Photos: Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License; Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Kyoto 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 Kyoto for

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

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

Choose Playa del Carmen for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • 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. Kyoto 15, Playa del Carmen 88: Playa del Carmen leads by 73 points.
Food & drink. Kyoto 85, Playa del Carmen 52: Kyoto leads by 33 points.
Culture & sights. Kyoto 96, Playa del Carmen 12: Kyoto leads by 84 points.
Nightlife. Kyoto 35, Playa del Carmen 66: Playa del Carmen leads by 31 points.
Nature & outdoors. Kyoto 70, Playa del Carmen 74: Playa del Carmen leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Kyoto 96, Playa del Carmen 72: Kyoto leads by 24 points.
Good for families. Kyoto 68, Playa del Carmen 78: Playa del Carmen leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Kyoto 72, Playa del Carmen 55: Kyoto leads by 17 points.
Shopping & style. Kyoto 72, Playa del Carmen 38: Kyoto leads by 34 points.
Affordability. Kyoto 50, Playa del Carmen 52: Playa del Carmen leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Kyoto 60, Playa del Carmen 22: Kyoto leads by 38 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Kyoto 70, Playa del Carmen 54: Kyoto leads by 16 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Kyoto and Playa del Carmen.

Your match

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

Kyoto
Best match
66match

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

Playa del Carmen
55match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Kyoto in July

31 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
225 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
14 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°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
KyotoPlaya del Carmen

Where the figures come from

Kyoto's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Osaka.

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. Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 km from centre). Playa del Carmen: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureKyotoPlaya del Carmen
Official languageJapaneseSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyYen (JPY)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the regionAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+9UTC-5
Emergency numberPolice 110, fire 119911
Elevation51 m8 m
Main airportKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinationsCancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre137 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureKyotoPlaya del Carmen
City population1,463,723304,942
People per km²1,768-
Museums within 10 km770
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km40
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 months12 months

Where else could you go?

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