VacationSelector
Waterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor, Newport Beach
Newport BeachWaterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor
The town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture, Playa del Carmen
Playa del CarmenThe town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture

Photos: Newport Beach by Don Ramey Logan, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Newport 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 Newport Beach for

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

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

Choose Playa del Carmen for

  • prices
  • getting around
  • nightlife

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. Newport Beach 70, Playa del Carmen 88: Playa del Carmen leads by 18 points.
Food & drink. Newport Beach 50, Playa del Carmen 52: Playa del Carmen leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Newport Beach 20, Playa del Carmen 12: Newport Beach leads by 8 points.
Nightlife. Newport Beach 33, Playa del Carmen 66: Playa del Carmen leads by 33 points.
Nature & outdoors. Newport Beach 66, Playa del Carmen 74: Playa del Carmen leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Newport Beach 70, Playa del Carmen 72: Playa del Carmen leads by 2 points.
Good for families. Newport Beach 80, Playa del Carmen 78: Newport Beach leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Newport Beach 20, Playa del Carmen 55: Playa del Carmen leads by 35 points.
Shopping & style. Newport Beach 62, Playa del Carmen 38: Newport Beach leads by 24 points.
Affordability. Newport Beach 15, Playa del Carmen 52: Playa del Carmen leads by 37 points.
Live music & performing arts. Newport Beach 46, Playa del Carmen 22: Newport Beach leads by 24 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Newport Beach 44, Playa del Carmen 54: Playa del Carmen leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Newport Beach and Playa del Carmen.

Your match

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

Newport Beach
48match

Wins on shopping and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Playa del Carmen
Best match
55match

Wins on prices and getting around with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Newport Beach in July

26 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
20 °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°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Newport 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. Newport Beach: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1981-2010) normals, Santa Ana / Paularino (7.1 km from centre). Playa del Carmen: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureNewport 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-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number911911
Elevation3 m8 m
Main airportJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)7 km from centre53 non-stop destinationsCancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre135 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureNewport BeachPlaya del Carmen
City population85,239304,942
People per km²622-
Museums within 10 km40
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

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