VacationSelector
A boat in the swell beside El Arco, Los Cabos
Los CabosA boat in the swell beside El Arco
A cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan, San Juan
San JuanA cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan

Photos: Los Cabos by Jules Clark, Pexels License; San Juan by Mohan Nannapaneni, Pexels License.

Los Cabos or San Juan?

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

  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose San Juan for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on San Juan’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 and San Juan are level on 84.
Food & drink. Los Cabos 54, San Juan 66: San Juan leads by 12 points.
Culture & sights. Los Cabos 20, San Juan 64: San Juan leads by 44 points.
Nightlife. Los Cabos 66, San Juan 70: San Juan leads by 4 points.
Nature & outdoors. Los Cabos 78, San Juan 74: Los Cabos leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Los Cabos 42, San Juan 52: San Juan leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Los Cabos 55, San Juan 58: San Juan leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Los Cabos 28, San Juan 38: San Juan leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Los Cabos 36, San Juan 50: San Juan leads by 14 points.
Affordability. Los Cabos 28, San Juan 38: San Juan leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. Los Cabos 12, San Juan 55: San Juan leads by 43 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Los Cabos 58, San Juan 40: Los Cabos leads by 18 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Los Cabos and San Juan.

Your match

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

Los Cabos
47match

Wins on wellness and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

San Juan
Best match
57match

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
No recordsunshine a day
26 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

San Juan in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
Los CabosSan Juan

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 Juan: 1991-2020 normals, San Juan / Int., Puerto Rico (12.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLos CabosSan Juan
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish, English
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-7UTC-4
Emergency number911911
Elevation11 m3 m
Main airportLos Cabos International Airport (SJD)35 km from centre54 non-stop destinationsLuis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU)12 km from centre59 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days21 days

By the numbers

MeasureLos CabosSan Juan
City population202,694342,259
People per km²-2,847
Museums within 10 km118
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

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