VacationSelector
A boat in the swell beside El Arco, Los Cabos
Los CabosA boat in the swell beside El Arco
The terrace on Cerro Santa Lucía, Santiago
SantiagoThe terrace on Cerro Santa Lucía

Photos: Los Cabos by Jules Clark, Pexels License; Santiago by Rjcastillo, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Los Cabos or Santiago?

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
  • wellness
  • nightlife

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

Choose Santiago for

  • live music and the arts
  • getting around
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Santiago’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, Santiago 12: Los Cabos leads by 72 points.
Food & drink. Los Cabos 54, Santiago 60: Santiago leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Los Cabos 20, Santiago 52: Santiago leads by 32 points.
Nightlife. Los Cabos 66, Santiago 60: Los Cabos leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Los Cabos 78, Santiago 83: Santiago leads by 5 points.
Day trips. Los Cabos 42, Santiago 70: Santiago leads by 28 points.
Good for families. Los Cabos 55, Santiago 57: Santiago leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Los Cabos 28, Santiago 68: Santiago leads by 40 points.
Shopping & style. Los Cabos 36, Santiago 52: Santiago leads by 16 points.
Affordability. Los Cabos 28, Santiago 58: Santiago leads by 30 points.
Live music & performing arts. Los Cabos 12, Santiago 55: Santiago leads by 43 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Los Cabos 58, Santiago 37: Los Cabos leads by 21 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Los Cabos and Santiago.

Your match

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

Los Cabos
47match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

Santiago
Best match
55match

Wins on live music and the arts 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
No recordsunshine a day
26 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Santiago in July

14 °Cdaytime high
4 °Cnight-time low
52 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
No seasea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
Los CabosSantiago

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. Santiago: 1991-2020 normals, Santiago Q. Normal (3.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLos CabosSantiago
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Chilean Peso (CLP)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCL220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-7UTC-4, UTC-3 in summer
Emergency number911Police 133/134, ambulance 131, fire 132
Elevation11 m575 m
Main airportLos Cabos International Airport (SJD)35 km from centre54 non-stop destinationsComodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport (SCL)14 km from centre67 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasureLos CabosSantiago
City population202,6946,257,516
People per km²-7,468
Museums within 10 km154
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 Santiago 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.