VacationSelector
A boat in the swell beside El Arco, Los Cabos
Los CabosA boat in the swell beside El Arco
The Plaza de los Naranjos and its fountain in the old town, Marbella
MarbellaThe Plaza de los Naranjos and its fountain in the old town

Photos: Los Cabos by Jules Clark, Pexels License; Marbella by Décio Franchini, Pexels License.

Los Cabos or Marbella?

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 Cabos for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

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

Choose Marbella for

  • day trips
  • shopping
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Marbella’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 Cabos 84, Marbella 76: Los Cabos leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. Los Cabos 54, Marbella 60: Marbella leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Los Cabos 20, Marbella 32: Marbella leads by 12 points.
Nightlife. Los Cabos 66, Marbella 64: Los Cabos leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Los Cabos 78, Marbella 70: Los Cabos leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Los Cabos 42, Marbella 77: Marbella leads by 35 points.
Good for families. Los Cabos 55, Marbella 70: Marbella leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Los Cabos 28, Marbella 38: Marbella leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Los Cabos 36, Marbella 58: Marbella leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Los Cabos 28, Marbella 30: Marbella leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Los Cabos 12, Marbella 30: Marbella leads by 18 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Los Cabos 58, Marbella 52: Los Cabos leads by 6 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Los Cabos and Marbella.

Your match

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

Los Cabos
47match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Marbella
Best match
55match

Wins on day trips and shopping with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Los Cabos in July

30 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
19 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
26 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Marbella in July

31 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
21 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
Los CabosMarbella

Where the figures come from

Los Cabos 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.

Marbella's temperatures are measured 40 km from the centre, at Malaga / Aeropuerto.

Marbella 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.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Los Cabos: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Marbella: 1991-2020 normals, Malaga / Aeropuerto (39.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLos CabosMarbella
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-7UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation11 m22 m
Main airportLos Cabos International Airport (SJD)35 km from centre54 non-stop destinationsMálaga-Costa del Sol Airport (AGP)39 km from centre166 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureLos CabosMarbella
City population202,694159,786
People per km²-1,398
Museums within 10 km16
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months3 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Los Cabos or Marbella somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.