VacationSelector
A boat in the swell beside El Arco, Los Cabos
Los CabosA boat in the swell beside El Arco
People's Square (Narodni trg), Zadar
ZadarPeople's Square (Narodni trg)

Photos: Los Cabos by Jules Clark, Pexels License; Zadar by Böhringer Friedrich, CC BY-SA 2.5, cropped.

Los Cabos or Zadar?

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

  • nightlife
  • wellness
  • beaches

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

Choose Zadar for

  • culture and sights
  • getting around
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Zadar’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, Zadar 72: Los Cabos leads by 12 points.
Food & drink. Los Cabos 54, Zadar 45: Los Cabos leads by 9 points.
Culture & sights. Los Cabos 20, Zadar 55: Zadar leads by 35 points.
Nightlife. Los Cabos 66, Zadar 38: Los Cabos leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Los Cabos 78, Zadar 82: Zadar leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Los Cabos 42, Zadar 70: Zadar leads by 28 points.
Good for families. Los Cabos and Zadar are level on 55.
Getting around. Los Cabos 28, Zadar 58: Zadar leads by 30 points.
Shopping & style. Los Cabos 36, Zadar 27: Los Cabos leads by 9 points.
Affordability. Los Cabos 28, Zadar 52: Zadar leads by 24 points.
Live music & performing arts. Los Cabos 12, Zadar 28: Zadar leads by 16 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Los Cabos 58, Zadar 35: Los Cabos leads by 23 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Los Cabos and Zadar.

Your match

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

Los Cabos
47match

Wins on nightlife and wellness with your weighting.

Zadar
Best match
51match

Wins on culture and sights 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

Zadar in July

31 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
29 mmrain in the month
24 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
Los CabosZadar

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.

Zadar 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. Zadar: 1999-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Zadar / Zemunik (9.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLos CabosZadar
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaCroatian
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-7UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation11 m5 m
Main airportLos Cabos International Airport (SJD)35 km from centre54 non-stop destinationsZadar Airport (ZAD)10 km from centre66 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureLos CabosZadar
City population202,69470,779
Museums within 10 km11
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Los Cabos or Zadar 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.