VacationSelector
A boat in the swell beside El Arco, Los Cabos
Los CabosA boat in the swell beside El Arco
The lighthouse in the Paphos Archaeological Park, Paphos
PaphosThe lighthouse in the Paphos Archaeological Park

Photos: Los Cabos by Jules Clark, Pexels License; Paphos by Nikodem Nijaki, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Los Cabos or Paphos?

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
  • wellness
  • shopping

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

Choose Paphos for

  • culture and sights
  • prices
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Paphos’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, Paphos 76: Los Cabos leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. Los Cabos 54, Paphos 45: Los Cabos leads by 9 points.
Culture & sights. Los Cabos 20, Paphos 62: Paphos leads by 42 points.
Nightlife. Los Cabos 66, Paphos 38: Los Cabos leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Los Cabos 78, Paphos 70: Los Cabos leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Los Cabos 42, Paphos 64: Paphos leads by 22 points.
Good for families. Los Cabos 55, Paphos 68: Paphos leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Los Cabos 28, Paphos 40: Paphos leads by 12 points.
Shopping & style. Los Cabos 36, Paphos 25: Los Cabos leads by 11 points.
Affordability. Los Cabos 28, Paphos 52: Paphos leads by 24 points.
Live music & performing arts. Los Cabos 12, Paphos 22: Paphos leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Los Cabos 58, Paphos 42: Los Cabos leads by 16 points.
0255075100

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

Your match

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

Los Cabos
47match

Wins on nightlife and wellness with your weighting.

Paphos
Best match
50match

Wins on culture and sights 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
26 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Paphos in July

30 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
27 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
Los CabosPaphos

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.

Paphos 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. Paphos: 1991-2020 normals, Paphos Airport (8.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLos CabosPaphos
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaTurkish, Greek, Modern Greek
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzG240 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-7UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation11 m72 m
Main airportLos Cabos International Airport (SJD)35 km from centre54 non-stop destinationsPaphos International Airport (PFO)8 km from centre58 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days17 days

By the numbers

MeasureLos CabosPaphos
City population202,69435,961
People per km²-1,987
Museums within 10 km14
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months6 months

Where else could you go?

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