VacationSelector
A boat in the swell beside El Arco, Los Cabos
Los CabosA boat in the swell beside El Arco
Seven Mile Beach, Negril
NegrilSeven Mile Beach

Photos: Los Cabos by Jules Clark, Pexels License; Negril by gustavo.kunst, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Los Cabos or Negril?

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

  • nightlife
  • shopping
  • food and drink

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

Choose Negril for

  • live music and the arts
  • prices
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Negril’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, Negril 93: Negril leads by 9 points.
Food & drink. Los Cabos 54, Negril 36: Los Cabos leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Los Cabos 20, Negril 8: Los Cabos leads by 12 points.
Nightlife. Los Cabos 66, Negril 40: Los Cabos leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Los Cabos 78, Negril 60: Los Cabos leads by 18 points.
Day trips. Los Cabos 42, Negril 35: Los Cabos leads by 7 points.
Good for families. Los Cabos 55, Negril 45: Los Cabos leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Los Cabos 28, Negril 30: Negril leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Los Cabos 36, Negril 15: Los Cabos leads by 21 points.
Affordability. Los Cabos 28, Negril 44: Negril leads by 16 points.
Live music & performing arts. Los Cabos 12, Negril 33: Negril leads by 21 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Los Cabos 58, Negril 52: Los Cabos leads by 6 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Los Cabos and Negril.

Your match

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

Los Cabos
Best match
47match

Wins on nightlife and shopping with your weighting.

Negril
41match

Wins on live music and the arts and prices 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

Negril in July

34 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
174 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Los CabosNegril

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.

Negril's temperatures are measured 52 km from the centre, at Montego Bay / Sangster.

Negril 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. Negril: 1991-2020 normals, Montego Bay / Sangster (51.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLos CabosNegril
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaEnglish, Jamaican Patois
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Jamaican Dollar (JMD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB116 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-7UTC-5
Emergency number911Police 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110
Elevation11 m10 m
Main airportLos Cabos International Airport (SJD)35 km from centre54 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)52 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureLos CabosNegril
City population202,6944,500
Museums within 10 km10
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

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