VacationSelector
The Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign, Las Vegas
Las VegasThe Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign
El Castillo above the beach at Tulum, Tulum
TulumEl Castillo above the beach at Tulum

Photos: Las Vegas by Christian David, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Tulum by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Las Vegas 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 Las Vegas for

  • live music and the arts
  • shopping
  • nightlife

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

Choose Tulum for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • day trips

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. Las Vegas 10, Tulum 88: Tulum leads by 78 points.
Food & drink. Las Vegas 68, Tulum 52: Las Vegas leads by 16 points.
Culture & sights. Las Vegas 25, Tulum 30: Tulum leads by 5 points.
Nightlife. Las Vegas 88, Tulum 60: Las Vegas leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Las Vegas 68, Tulum 76: Tulum leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Las Vegas 25, Tulum 68: Tulum leads by 43 points.
Good for families. Las Vegas 25, Tulum 60: Tulum leads by 35 points.
Getting around. Las Vegas 38, Tulum 25: Las Vegas leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Las Vegas 64, Tulum 35: Las Vegas leads by 29 points.
Affordability. Las Vegas 35, Tulum 30: Las Vegas leads by 5 points.
Live music & performing arts. Las Vegas 78, Tulum 15: Las Vegas leads by 63 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Las Vegas 40, Tulum 85: Tulum leads by 45 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Las Vegas
47match

Wins on live music and the arts and shopping with your weighting.

Tulum
Best match
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.

Las Vegas in July

40 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
9 mmrain in the month
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Tulum in July

30 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
116 mmrain in the month
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Las VegasTulum

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. Las Vegas: 1991-2020 normals, McCarran International Airport (8.5 km from centre). Tulum: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureLas VegasTulum
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-5
Emergency number911911
Elevation610 m5 m
Main airportHarry Reid International Airport (LAS)4 km from centre159 non-stop destinationsFelipe Carrillo Puerto International Airport Tulum (TQO)21 km from centre11 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureLas VegasTulum
City population641,90333,374
People per km²1,843-
Museums within 10 km210
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Las Vegas 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). 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.