VacationSelector
Bougainvillea and the dome of Agia Napa Cathedral, Limassol
LimassolBougainvillea and the dome of Agia Napa Cathedral
El Castillo above the beach at Tulum, Tulum
TulumEl Castillo above the beach at Tulum

Photos: Limassol by Julian Lupyan, CC0; Tulum by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Limassol 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 Limassol for

  • live music and the arts
  • prices
  • getting around

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

Choose Tulum for

  • wellness
  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors

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. Limassol 77, Tulum 88: Tulum leads by 11 points.
Food & drink. Limassol 58, Tulum 52: Limassol leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Limassol 38, Tulum 30: Limassol leads by 8 points.
Nightlife. Limassol 50, Tulum 60: Tulum leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Limassol 65, Tulum 76: Tulum leads by 11 points.
Day trips. Limassol 76, Tulum 68: Limassol leads by 8 points.
Good for families. Limassol 63, Tulum 60: Limassol leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Limassol 38, Tulum 25: Limassol leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Limassol 42, Tulum 35: Limassol leads by 7 points.
Affordability. Limassol 44, Tulum 30: Limassol leads by 14 points.
Live music & performing arts. Limassol 32, Tulum 15: Limassol leads by 17 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Limassol 42, Tulum 85: Tulum leads by 43 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Limassol and Tulum.

Your match

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

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Limassol
52match

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

Tulum
52match

Wins on wellness and beaches with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Limassol in July

31 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
13 hsunshine a day
26 °Csea
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
LimassolTulum

Where the figures come from

Limassol 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.

Limassol's sunshine is measured 59 km from the centre, at Larnaca Airport.

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. Limassol: 1998-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Akrotiri (11.6 km from centre). Tulum: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureLimassolTulum
Official languageTurkish, Greek, Modern GreekSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsG240 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2, UTC+3 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number112911
Elevation10 m5 m
Main airportLarnaca International Airport (LCA)58 km from centre112 non-stop destinationsFelipe Carrillo Puerto International Airport Tulum (TQO)21 km from centre11 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year17 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureLimassolTulum
City population107,97033,374
People per km²2,405-
Museums within 10 km20
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km30
Swim season, months above 21 °C6 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Limassol or Tulum 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). 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. 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.