VacationSelector
Colourful houses in the old town, Mazatlan
MazatlanColourful houses in the old town
Rowing boats below the ghats in the morning light, Varanasi
VaranasiRowing boats below the ghats in the morning light

Photos: Mazatlan by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Varanasi by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Mazatlan or Varanasi?

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

  • beaches
  • families
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Varanasi for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Varanasi’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, Varanasi 4: Mazatlan leads by 76 points.
Food & drink. Mazatlan 62, Varanasi 55: Mazatlan leads by 7 points.
Culture & sights. Mazatlan 42, Varanasi 80: Varanasi leads by 38 points.
Nightlife. Mazatlan 55, Varanasi 10: Mazatlan leads by 45 points.
Nature & outdoors. Mazatlan 66, Varanasi 18: Mazatlan leads by 48 points.
Day trips. Mazatlan 45, Varanasi 42: Mazatlan leads by 3 points.
Good for families. Mazatlan 60, Varanasi 5: Mazatlan leads by 55 points.
Getting around. Mazatlan 42, Varanasi 28: Mazatlan leads by 14 points.
Shopping & style. Mazatlan 30, Varanasi 55: Varanasi leads by 25 points.
Affordability. Mazatlan 70, Varanasi 92: Varanasi leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. Mazatlan 40, Varanasi 58: Varanasi leads by 18 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Mazatlan 35, Varanasi 30: Mazatlan leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Mazatlan and Varanasi.

Your match

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

Mazatlan
Best match
52match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Varanasi
40match

Wins on culture and sights and shopping 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

Varanasi in July

35 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
249 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
MazatlanVaranasi

Where the figures come from

Varanasi 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). Varanasi: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureMazatlanVaranasi
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaHindi, English
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Indian Rupee (INR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCM230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-7UTC+5:30
Emergency number911108 or 112
Elevation139 m76 m
Main airportGeneral Rafael Buelna International Airport (MZT)16 km from centre23 non-stop destinationsLal Bahadur Shastri International Airport (VNS)21 km from centre16 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days-

By the numbers

MeasureMazatlanVaranasi
City population441,9751,198,491
People per km²-14,598
Museums within 10 km32
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
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 Mazatlan or Varanasi 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.