VacationSelector
A purple lifeguard tower on South Beach, Miami Beach
Miami BeachA purple lifeguard tower on South Beach
The town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture, Playa del Carmen
Playa del CarmenThe town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture

Photos: Miami Beach by Radomianin, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Miami Beach or Playa del Carmen?

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 Miami Beach for

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

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

Choose Playa del Carmen for

  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Playa del Carmen’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. Miami Beach 92, Playa del Carmen 88: Miami Beach leads by 4 points.
Food & drink. Miami Beach 62, Playa del Carmen 52: Miami Beach leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Miami Beach 52, Playa del Carmen 12: Miami Beach leads by 40 points.
Nightlife. Miami Beach 80, Playa del Carmen 66: Miami Beach leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. Miami Beach 52, Playa del Carmen 74: Playa del Carmen leads by 22 points.
Day trips. Miami Beach 55, Playa del Carmen 72: Playa del Carmen leads by 17 points.
Good for families. Miami Beach 60, Playa del Carmen 78: Playa del Carmen leads by 18 points.
Getting around. Miami Beach 58, Playa del Carmen 55: Miami Beach leads by 3 points.
Shopping & style. Miami Beach 55, Playa del Carmen 38: Miami Beach leads by 17 points.
Affordability. Miami Beach 20, Playa del Carmen 52: Playa del Carmen leads by 32 points.
Live music & performing arts. Miami Beach 55, Playa del Carmen 22: Miami Beach leads by 33 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Miami Beach 48, Playa del Carmen 54: Playa del Carmen leads by 6 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Miami Beach and Playa del Carmen.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Miami Beach
57match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Playa del Carmen
55match

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

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Miami Beach in July

33 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
186 mmrain in the month
29 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Playa del Carmen in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
96 mmrain in the month
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Miami BeachPlaya del Carmen

Where the figures come from

Playa del Carmen 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. Miami Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Miami International Airport (18.8 km from centre). Playa del Carmen: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureMiami BeachPlaya del Carmen
Official language-Spanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number911911
Elevation1 m8 m
Main airportMiami International Airport (MIA)16 km from centre198 non-stop destinationsCancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre135 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureMiami BeachPlaya del Carmen
City population82,890304,942
People per km²2,109-
Museums within 10 km140
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 Miami Beach or Playa del Carmen 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.