VacationSelector
The Ferris wheel on Santa Monica Pier, Los Angeles
Los AngelesThe Ferris wheel on Santa Monica Pier
El Castillo above the beach at Tulum, Tulum
TulumEl Castillo above the beach at Tulum

Photos: Los Angeles by Domenico Convertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Tulum by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Los Angeles 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 Los Angeles for

  • live music and the arts
  • shopping
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Los Angeles’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. Los Angeles 60, Tulum 88: Tulum leads by 28 points.
Food & drink. Los Angeles 84, Tulum 52: Los Angeles leads by 32 points.
Culture & sights. Los Angeles 66, Tulum 30: Los Angeles leads by 36 points.
Nightlife. Los Angeles 67, Tulum 60: Los Angeles leads by 7 points.
Nature & outdoors. Los Angeles 80, Tulum 76: Los Angeles leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Los Angeles 60, Tulum 68: Tulum leads by 8 points.
Good for families. Los Angeles 84, Tulum 60: Los Angeles leads by 24 points.
Getting around. Los Angeles and Tulum are level on 25.
Shopping & style. Los Angeles 80, Tulum 35: Los Angeles leads by 45 points.
Affordability. Los Angeles 24, Tulum 30: Tulum leads by 6 points.
Live music & performing arts. Los Angeles 83, Tulum 15: Los Angeles leads by 68 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Los Angeles 60, Tulum 85: Tulum leads by 25 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Los Angeles and Tulum.

Your match

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

Los Angeles
Best match
64match

Wins on live music and the arts and shopping 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.

Los Angeles in July

24 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
20 °Csea
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°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Los AngelesTulum

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. Los Angeles: 1991-2020 normals, Los Angeles Airport (18.5 km from centre). Tulum: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureLos AngelesTulum
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
Elevation106 m5 m
Main airportLos Angeles International Airport (LAX)19 km from centre177 non-stop destinationsFelipe Carrillo Puerto International Airport Tulum (TQO)21 km from centre11 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureLos AngelesTulum
City population3,898,74733,374
People per km²2,994-
Museums within 10 km390
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 Los Angeles 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). 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.