VacationSelector
A yellow tram in a narrow street, Lisbon
LisbonA yellow tram in a narrow street
El Castillo above the beach at Tulum, Tulum
TulumEl Castillo above the beach at Tulum

Photos: Lisbon by Riccardo Toso, Pexels License; Tulum by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Lisbon 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 Lisbon for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Lisbon’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. Lisbon 50, Tulum 88: Tulum leads by 38 points.
Food & drink. Lisbon 75, Tulum 52: Lisbon leads by 23 points.
Culture & sights. Lisbon 78, Tulum 30: Lisbon leads by 48 points.
Nightlife. Lisbon 75, Tulum 60: Lisbon leads by 15 points.
Nature & outdoors. Lisbon 75, Tulum 76: Tulum leads by 1 points.
Day trips. Lisbon 82, Tulum 68: Lisbon leads by 14 points.
Good for families. Lisbon 62, Tulum 60: Lisbon leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Lisbon 66, Tulum 25: Lisbon leads by 41 points.
Shopping & style. Lisbon 60, Tulum 35: Lisbon leads by 25 points.
Affordability. Lisbon 55, Tulum 30: Lisbon leads by 25 points.
Live music & performing arts. Lisbon 60, Tulum 15: Lisbon leads by 45 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Lisbon 36, Tulum 85: Tulum leads by 49 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Lisbon and Tulum.

Your match

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

Lisbon
Best match
65match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts 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.

Lisbon in July

28 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
3 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
18 °Csea
15 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
LisbonTulum

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. Lisbon: 1991-2020 normals, Lisboa / Geof (1.1 km from centre). Tulum: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureLisbonTulum
Official languagePortugueseSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number112911
Elevation100 m5 m
Main airportLisbon Humberto Delgado Airport (LIS)7 km from centre156 non-stop destinationsFelipe Carrillo Puerto International Airport Tulum (TQO)21 km from centre11 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureLisbonTulum
City population545,79633,374
People per km²5,453-
Museums within 10 km800
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km30
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 Lisbon 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. 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.