VacationSelector
Brooklyn Bridge and Lower Manhattan, New York
New YorkBrooklyn Bridge and Lower Manhattan
The town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture, Playa del Carmen
Playa del CarmenThe town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture

Photos: New York by Jakub Hałun, CC BY 4.0, cropped; Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

New York 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 York for

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

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

Choose Playa del Carmen for

  • prices
  • beaches
  • 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. New York 50, Playa del Carmen 88: Playa del Carmen leads by 38 points.
Food & drink. New York 92, Playa del Carmen 52: New York leads by 40 points.
Culture & sights. New York 89, Playa del Carmen 12: New York leads by 77 points.
Nightlife. New York 97, Playa del Carmen 66: New York leads by 31 points.
Nature & outdoors. New York 55, Playa del Carmen 74: Playa del Carmen leads by 19 points.
Day trips. New York 68, Playa del Carmen 72: Playa del Carmen leads by 4 points.
Good for families. New York 70, Playa del Carmen 78: Playa del Carmen leads by 8 points.
Getting around. New York 82, Playa del Carmen 55: New York leads by 27 points.
Shopping & style. New York 97, Playa del Carmen 38: New York leads by 59 points.
Affordability. New York 12, Playa del Carmen 52: Playa del Carmen leads by 40 points.
Live music & performing arts. New York 99, Playa del Carmen 22: New York leads by 77 points.
Wellness & relaxation. New York 42, Playa del Carmen 54: Playa del Carmen leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: New York and Playa del Carmen.

Your match

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

New York
Best match
71match

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

Playa del Carmen
55match

Wins on prices and beaches with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

New York in July

30 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
107 mmrain in the month
22 °Csea
15 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 YorkPlaya 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 York: 1991-2020 normals, LaGuardia Airport (12.9 km from centre). Playa del Carmen: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureNew YorkPlaya 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
Elevation25 m8 m
Main airportJohn F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)21 km from centre189 non-stop destinationsCancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre137 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureNew YorkPlaya del Carmen
City population8,804,190304,942
People per km²7,256-
Museums within 10 km1570
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °C3 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow New York 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.