VacationSelector
Main Beach with its palms and lifeguard tower, Laguna Beach
Laguna BeachMain Beach with its palms and lifeguard tower
A boat in the swell beside El Arco, Los Cabos
Los CabosA boat in the swell beside El Arco

Photos: Laguna Beach by Mark Stebnicki, Pexels License; Los Cabos by Jules Clark, Pexels License.

Laguna Beach 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 Laguna Beach for

  • day trips
  • live music and the arts
  • families

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

Choose Los Cabos for

  • nightlife
  • prices
  • food and drink

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. Laguna Beach 72, Los Cabos 84: Los Cabos leads by 12 points.
Food & drink. Laguna Beach 40, Los Cabos 54: Los Cabos leads by 14 points.
Culture & sights. Laguna Beach 27, Los Cabos 20: Laguna Beach leads by 7 points.
Nightlife. Laguna Beach 18, Los Cabos 66: Los Cabos leads by 48 points.
Nature & outdoors. Laguna Beach 73, Los Cabos 78: Los Cabos leads by 5 points.
Day trips. Laguna Beach 72, Los Cabos 42: Laguna Beach leads by 30 points.
Good for families. Laguna Beach 68, Los Cabos 55: Laguna Beach leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Laguna Beach 33, Los Cabos 28: Laguna Beach leads by 5 points.
Shopping & style. Laguna Beach 46, Los Cabos 36: Laguna Beach leads by 10 points.
Affordability. Laguna Beach 12, Los Cabos 28: Los Cabos leads by 16 points.
Live music & performing arts. Laguna Beach 40, Los Cabos 12: Laguna Beach leads by 28 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Laguna Beach 47, Los Cabos 58: Los Cabos leads by 11 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Laguna Beach and Los Cabos.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Laguna Beach
46match

Wins on day trips and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Los Cabos
47match

Wins on nightlife and prices with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Laguna Beach in July

28 °Cdaytime high
17 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
20 °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

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
Laguna BeachLos Cabos

Where the figures come from

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. Laguna Beach: 1981-2010 normals, Irvine (15.5 km from centre). Los Cabos: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureLaguna BeachLos Cabos
Official language-Spanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC-7
Emergency number911911
Elevation6 m11 m
Main airportJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)18 km from centre53 non-stop destinationsLos Cabos International Airport (SJD)35 km from centre54 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureLaguna BeachLos Cabos
City population23,032202,694
People per km²907-
Museums within 10 km21
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Laguna Beach 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.