VacationSelector
A boat in the swell beside El Arco, Los Cabos
Los CabosA boat in the swell beside El Arco
The Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock, Petra
PetraThe Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock

Photos: Los Cabos by Jules Clark, Pexels License; Petra by Yasir Gürbüz, Pexels License.

Los Cabos or Petra?

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
  • food and drink

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

Choose Petra for

  • culture and sights
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Petra’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, Petra 5: Los Cabos leads by 79 points.
Food & drink. Los Cabos 54, Petra 22: Los Cabos leads by 32 points.
Culture & sights. Los Cabos 20, Petra 85: Petra leads by 65 points.
Nightlife. Los Cabos 66, Petra 5: Los Cabos leads by 61 points.
Nature & outdoors. Los Cabos and Petra are level on 78.
Day trips. Los Cabos 42, Petra 30: Los Cabos leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Los Cabos 55, Petra 25: Los Cabos leads by 30 points.
Getting around. Los Cabos 28, Petra 25: Los Cabos leads by 3 points.
Shopping & style. Los Cabos 36, Petra 18: Los Cabos leads by 18 points.
Affordability. Los Cabos 28, Petra 45: Petra leads by 17 points.
Live music & performing arts. Los Cabos 12, Petra 10: Los Cabos leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Los Cabos 58, Petra 28: Los Cabos leads by 30 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Los Cabos and Petra.

Your match

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

Los Cabos
Best match
47match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Petra
31match

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
No recordsunshine a day
26 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Petra in July

35 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
Los CabosPetra

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.

Petra's temperatures are measured 34 km from the centre, at Ma'An.

Petra's station stands 219 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

Petra 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. Petra: 1991-2020 normals, Ma'An (33.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLos CabosPetra
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaArabic
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Jordanian Dinar (JOD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzBCFGJ230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-7UTC+3
Emergency number911911
Elevation11 m850 m
Main airportLos Cabos International Airport (SJD)35 km from centre54 non-stop destinationsKing Hussein International Airport (AQJ)90 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days-

By the numbers

MeasureLos CabosPetra
City population202,694-
Museums within 10 km12
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 Petra 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.