VacationSelector
A boat in the swell beside El Arco, Los Cabos
Los CabosA boat in the swell beside El Arco
The Winchester Mystery House, San Jose
San JoseThe Winchester Mystery House

Photos: Los Cabos by Jules Clark, Pexels License; San Jose by Roxanna Salceda, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Los Cabos or San Jose?

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 San Jose for

  • day trips
  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on San Jose’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, San Jose 30: Los Cabos leads by 54 points.
Food & drink. Los Cabos 54, San Jose 56: San Jose leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Los Cabos 20, San Jose 36: San Jose leads by 16 points.
Nightlife. Los Cabos 66, San Jose 33: Los Cabos leads by 33 points.
Nature & outdoors. Los Cabos 78, San Jose 72: Los Cabos leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Los Cabos 42, San Jose 78: San Jose leads by 36 points.
Good for families. Los Cabos 55, San Jose 65: San Jose leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Los Cabos 28, San Jose 30: San Jose leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Los Cabos 36, San Jose 48: San Jose leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Los Cabos 28, San Jose 20: Los Cabos leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Los Cabos 12, San Jose 38: San Jose leads by 26 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Los Cabos 58, San Jose 30: Los Cabos leads by 28 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Los Cabos and San Jose.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Los Cabos
47match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

San Jose
45match

Wins on day trips 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

San Jose in July

27 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
14 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
Los CabosSan Jose

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. San Jose: 1991-2020 normals, San Jose / Santa Clara Trailer Village (8.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLos CabosSan Jose
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya-
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-7UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation11 m25 m
Main airportLos Cabos International Airport (SJD)35 km from centre54 non-stop destinationsMineta San Jose International Airport (SJC)8 km from centre38 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureLos CabosSan Jose
City population202,6941,013,240
People per km²-2,167
Museums within 10 km119
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

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