VacationSelector
Big Ben and Westminster Bridge, London
LondonBig Ben and Westminster Bridge
El Castillo above the beach at Tulum, Tulum
TulumEl Castillo above the beach at Tulum

Photos: London by AXP Photography, Pexels License; Tulum by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

London 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 London for

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

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

Choose Tulum for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • 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. London 25, Tulum 88: Tulum leads by 63 points.
Food & drink. London 84, Tulum 52: London leads by 32 points.
Culture & sights. London 94, Tulum 30: London leads by 64 points.
Nightlife. London 88, Tulum 60: London leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. London 57, Tulum 76: Tulum leads by 19 points.
Day trips. London 90, Tulum 68: London leads by 22 points.
Good for families. London 82, Tulum 60: London leads by 22 points.
Getting around. London 85, Tulum 25: London leads by 60 points.
Shopping & style. London 95, Tulum 35: London leads by 60 points.
Affordability. London 15, Tulum 30: Tulum leads by 15 points.
Live music & performing arts. London 98, Tulum 15: London leads by 83 points.
Wellness & relaxation. London 40, Tulum 85: Tulum leads by 45 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: London and Tulum.

Your match

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

London
Best match
71match

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

Tulum
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.

London in July

23 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
46 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
16 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
LondonTulum

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. London: 1992-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, London Weather Centre (1.3 km from centre). Tulum: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureLondonTulum
Official languageEnglishSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyPound Sterling (GBP)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsG230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number112 or 999911
Elevation4 m5 m
Main airportLondon Heathrow Airport (LHR)23 km from centre224 non-stop destinationsFelipe Carrillo Puerto International Airport Tulum (TQO)21 km from centre11 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year8 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureLondonTulum
City population8,799,72833,374
People per km²5,598-
Museums within 10 km2160
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km40
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 London 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.