VacationSelector
Colourful houses in the old town, Mazatlan
MazatlanColourful houses in the old town
The lighthouse and harbour at Sharm el-Sheikh, Sharm el-Sheikh
Sharm el-SheikhThe lighthouse and harbour at Sharm el-Sheikh

Photos: Mazatlan by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Sharm el-Sheikh by Tanya Dedyukhina, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Mazatlan or Sharm el-Sheikh?

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 Mazatlan for

  • food and drink
  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Sharm el-Sheikh for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Sharm el-Sheikh’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. Mazatlan 80, Sharm el-Sheikh 87: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 7 points.
Food & drink. Mazatlan 62, Sharm el-Sheikh 30: Mazatlan leads by 32 points.
Culture & sights. Mazatlan 42, Sharm el-Sheikh 12: Mazatlan leads by 30 points.
Nightlife. Mazatlan 55, Sharm el-Sheikh 42: Mazatlan leads by 13 points.
Nature & outdoors. Mazatlan 66, Sharm el-Sheikh 82: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 16 points.
Day trips. Mazatlan 45, Sharm el-Sheikh 30: Mazatlan leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Mazatlan 60, Sharm el-Sheikh 62: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Mazatlan 42, Sharm el-Sheikh 22: Mazatlan leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Mazatlan 30, Sharm el-Sheikh 25: Mazatlan leads by 5 points.
Affordability. Mazatlan 70, Sharm el-Sheikh 74: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. Mazatlan 40, Sharm el-Sheikh 10: Mazatlan leads by 30 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Mazatlan 35, Sharm el-Sheikh 50: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 15 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Mazatlan and Sharm el-Sheikh.

Your match

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

Mazatlan
Best match
52match

Wins on food and drink and culture and sights with your weighting.

Sharm el-Sheikh
44match

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

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Mazatlan in July

34 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Sharm el-Sheikh in July

38 °Cdaytime high
28 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
MazatlanSharm el-Sheikh

Where the figures come from

Sharm el-Sheikh 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. Mazatlan: 1991-2020 normals, Colonia Juan Carras-Co Mazatlan, Sin. (2 km from centre). Sharm el-Sheikh: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureMazatlanSharm el-Sheikh
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaArabic
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Egyptian Pound (EGP)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-7UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number911Police 122, ambulance 123, fire 180
Elevation139 m1 m
Main airportGeneral Rafael Buelna International Airport (MZT)16 km from centre23 non-stop destinationsSharm El Sheikh International Airport (SSH)16 km from centre112 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureMazatlanSharm el-Sheikh
City population441,97573,000
Museums within 10 km31
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Mazatlan or Sharm el-Sheikh somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.