VacationSelector
The steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi, New Orleans
New OrleansThe steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi
The town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture, Playa del Carmen
Playa del CarmenThe town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture

Photos: New Orleans by Bernard Spragg, CC0; Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

New Orleans 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 New Orleans for

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

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

Choose Playa del Carmen for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

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. New Orleans 14, Playa del Carmen 88: Playa del Carmen leads by 74 points.
Food & drink. New Orleans 84, Playa del Carmen 52: New Orleans leads by 32 points.
Culture & sights. New Orleans 67, Playa del Carmen 12: New Orleans leads by 55 points.
Nightlife. New Orleans 85, Playa del Carmen 66: New Orleans leads by 19 points.
Nature & outdoors. New Orleans 42, Playa del Carmen 74: Playa del Carmen leads by 32 points.
Day trips. New Orleans 52, Playa del Carmen 72: Playa del Carmen leads by 20 points.
Good for families. New Orleans 55, Playa del Carmen 78: Playa del Carmen leads by 23 points.
Getting around. New Orleans and Playa del Carmen are level on 55.
Shopping & style. New Orleans 54, Playa del Carmen 38: New Orleans leads by 16 points.
Affordability. New Orleans 40, Playa del Carmen 52: Playa del Carmen leads by 12 points.
Live music & performing arts. New Orleans 80, Playa del Carmen 22: New Orleans leads by 58 points.
Wellness & relaxation. New Orleans 25, Playa del Carmen 54: Playa del Carmen leads by 29 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: New Orleans 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, 1 point apart

New Orleans
54match

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

Playa del Carmen
55match

Wins on beaches 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.

New Orleans in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
169 mmrain in the month
30 °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

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
New OrleansPlaya 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. New Orleans: 1991-2020 normals, New Orleans Airport (2.7 km from centre). Playa del Carmen: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureNew OrleansPlaya 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
Elevation-2 m8 m
Main airportLouis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)18 km from centre51 non-stop destinationsCancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre137 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureNew OrleansPlaya del Carmen
City population383,997304,942
People per km²423-
Museums within 10 km160
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C7 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow New Orleans 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.