VacationSelector
Lower Broadway and its honky-tonks, Nashville
NashvilleLower Broadway and its honky-tonks
The town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture, Playa del Carmen
Playa del CarmenThe town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture

Photos: Nashville by Warren LeMay, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Nashville 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 Nashville for

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

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

Choose Playa del Carmen for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

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. Nashville 14, Playa del Carmen 88: Playa del Carmen leads by 74 points.
Food & drink. Nashville 62, Playa del Carmen 52: Nashville leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Nashville 50, Playa del Carmen 12: Nashville leads by 38 points.
Nightlife. Nashville 70, Playa del Carmen 66: Nashville leads by 4 points.
Nature & outdoors. Nashville 46, Playa del Carmen 74: Playa del Carmen leads by 28 points.
Day trips. Nashville 52, Playa del Carmen 72: Playa del Carmen leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Nashville 55, Playa del Carmen 78: Playa del Carmen leads by 23 points.
Getting around. Nashville 30, Playa del Carmen 55: Playa del Carmen leads by 25 points.
Shopping & style. Nashville 42, Playa del Carmen 38: Nashville leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Nashville 30, Playa del Carmen 52: Playa del Carmen leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. Nashville 82, Playa del Carmen 22: Nashville leads by 60 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Nashville 20, Playa del Carmen 54: Playa del Carmen leads by 34 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Nashville and Playa del Carmen.

Your match

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

Nashville
46match

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

Playa del Carmen
Best match
55match

Wins on beaches 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.

Nashville in July

32 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
104 mmrain in the month
No seasea
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

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
NashvillePlaya 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. Nashville: 1991-2020 normals, Nashville Airport (9.6 km from centre). Playa del Carmen: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureNashvillePlaya 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-6, UTC-5 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number911911
Elevation182 m8 m
Main airportNashville International Airport (BNA)10 km from centre122 non-stop destinationsCancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre137 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureNashvillePlaya del Carmen
City population689,447304,942
People per km²506-
Museums within 10 km120
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Nashville 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. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.