VacationSelector
Waterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor, Newport Beach
Newport BeachWaterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor
El Castillo above the beach at Tulum, Tulum
TulumEl Castillo above the beach at Tulum

Photos: Newport Beach by Don Ramey Logan, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Tulum by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Newport Beach or Tulum?

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

  • live music and the arts
  • shopping
  • families

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

Choose Tulum for

  • wellness
  • nightlife
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Tulum’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, Tulum 88: Tulum leads by 18 points.
Food & drink. Newport Beach 50, Tulum 52: Tulum leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Newport Beach 20, Tulum 30: Tulum leads by 10 points.
Nightlife. Newport Beach 33, Tulum 60: Tulum leads by 27 points.
Nature & outdoors. Newport Beach 66, Tulum 76: Tulum leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Newport Beach 70, Tulum 68: Newport Beach leads by 2 points.
Good for families. Newport Beach 80, Tulum 60: Newport Beach leads by 20 points.
Getting around. Newport Beach 20, Tulum 25: Tulum leads by 5 points.
Shopping & style. Newport Beach 62, Tulum 35: Newport Beach leads by 27 points.
Affordability. Newport Beach 15, Tulum 30: Tulum leads by 15 points.
Live music & performing arts. Newport Beach 46, Tulum 15: Newport Beach leads by 31 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Newport Beach 44, Tulum 85: Tulum leads by 41 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Newport Beach and Tulum.

Your match

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

Newport Beach
48match

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

Tulum
Best match
52match

Wins on wellness and nightlife 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

Tulum in July

30 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
116 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
Newport BeachTulum

Where the figures come from

Tulum 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). Tulum: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureNewport BeachTulum
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 m5 m
Main airportJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)7 km from centre53 non-stop destinationsFelipe Carrillo Puerto International Airport Tulum (TQO)21 km from centre9 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureNewport BeachTulum
City population85,23933,374
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 Tulum 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.