VacationSelector
A boat in the swell beside El Arco, Los Cabos
Los CabosA boat in the swell beside El Arco
The wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind, Queenstown
QueenstownThe wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind

Photos: Los Cabos by Jules Clark, Pexels License; Queenstown by Robert Linsdell, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Los Cabos or Queenstown?

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
  • wellness

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

Choose Queenstown for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • getting around
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Queenstown’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, Queenstown 20: Los Cabos leads by 64 points.
Food & drink. Los Cabos 54, Queenstown 45: Los Cabos leads by 9 points.
Culture & sights. Los Cabos 20, Queenstown 12: Los Cabos leads by 8 points.
Nightlife. Los Cabos 66, Queenstown 42: Los Cabos leads by 24 points.
Nature & outdoors. Los Cabos 78, Queenstown 97: Queenstown leads by 19 points.
Day trips. Los Cabos 42, Queenstown 50: Queenstown leads by 8 points.
Good for families. Los Cabos 55, Queenstown 60: Queenstown leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Los Cabos 28, Queenstown 45: Queenstown leads by 17 points.
Shopping & style. Los Cabos 36, Queenstown 28: Los Cabos leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Los Cabos 28, Queenstown 20: Los Cabos leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Los Cabos 12, Queenstown 14: Queenstown leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Los Cabos 58, Queenstown 42: Los Cabos leads by 16 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Los Cabos and Queenstown.

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.

Queenstown
40match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and getting around 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

Queenstown in July

6 °Cdaytime high
-1 °Cnight-time low
115 mmrain in the month
No seasea
9 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Los CabosQueenstown

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.

Queenstown 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. Queenstown: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureLos CabosQueenstown
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaEnglish, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-7UTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency number911111
Elevation11 m324 m
Main airportLos Cabos International Airport (SJD)35 km from centre54 non-stop destinationsQueenstown Airport (ZQN)7 km from centre7 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureLos CabosQueenstown
City population202,69429,000
Museums within 10 km10
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Queenstown 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. 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.