VacationSelector
A boat in the swell beside El Arco, Los Cabos
Los CabosA boat in the swell beside El Arco
Parliament Hill across the Ottawa River, Ottawa
OttawaParliament Hill across the Ottawa River

Photos: Los Cabos by Jules Clark, Pexels License; Ottawa by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Los Cabos or Ottawa?

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
  • nightlife
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Ottawa for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Ottawa’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, Ottawa 35: Los Cabos leads by 49 points.
Food & drink. Los Cabos 54, Ottawa 45: Los Cabos leads by 9 points.
Culture & sights. Los Cabos 20, Ottawa 62: Ottawa leads by 42 points.
Nightlife. Los Cabos 66, Ottawa 35: Los Cabos leads by 31 points.
Nature & outdoors. Los Cabos 78, Ottawa 68: Los Cabos leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Los Cabos 42, Ottawa 55: Ottawa leads by 13 points.
Good for families. Los Cabos 55, Ottawa 68: Ottawa leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Los Cabos 28, Ottawa 62: Ottawa leads by 34 points.
Shopping & style. Los Cabos 36, Ottawa 40: Ottawa leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Los Cabos 28, Ottawa 40: Ottawa leads by 12 points.
Live music & performing arts. Los Cabos 12, Ottawa 52: Ottawa leads by 40 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Los Cabos 58, Ottawa 55: Los Cabos leads by 3 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Los Cabos and Ottawa.

Your match

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

Los Cabos
47match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Ottawa
Best match
51match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts 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
26 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Ottawa in July

27 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
82 mmrain in the month
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
Los CabosOttawa

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.

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. Ottawa: 1991-2020 normals, Ottawa CDA RCS (5.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLos CabosOttawa
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaFrench, English
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Canadian Dollar (CAD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-7UTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation11 m70 m
Main airportLos Cabos International Airport (SJD)35 km from centre54 non-stop destinationsOttawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport (YOW)12 km from centre46 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureLos CabosOttawa
City population202,6941,017,449
People per km²-366
Museums within 10 km120
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Los Cabos or Ottawa 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.