VacationSelector
Santo Domingo church behind agaves, Oaxaca
OaxacaSanto Domingo church behind agaves
The lighthouse in the Paphos Archaeological Park, Paphos
PaphosThe lighthouse in the Paphos Archaeological Park

Photos: Oaxaca by Öskr Rck, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Paphos by Nikodem Nijaki, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Oaxaca or Paphos?

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 Oaxaca for

  • food and drink
  • shopping
  • prices

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

Choose Paphos for

  • beaches
  • families
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Paphos’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. Oaxaca 5, Paphos 76: Paphos leads by 71 points.
Food & drink. Oaxaca 84, Paphos 45: Oaxaca leads by 39 points.
Culture & sights. Oaxaca 74, Paphos 62: Oaxaca leads by 12 points.
Nightlife. Oaxaca 40, Paphos 38: Oaxaca leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Oaxaca 62, Paphos 70: Paphos leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Oaxaca 65, Paphos 64: Oaxaca leads by 1 points.
Good for families. Oaxaca 40, Paphos 68: Paphos leads by 28 points.
Getting around. Oaxaca 55, Paphos 40: Oaxaca leads by 15 points.
Shopping & style. Oaxaca 62, Paphos 25: Oaxaca leads by 37 points.
Affordability. Oaxaca 77, Paphos 52: Oaxaca leads by 25 points.
Live music & performing arts. Oaxaca 38, Paphos 22: Oaxaca leads by 16 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Oaxaca 50, Paphos 42: Oaxaca leads by 8 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Oaxaca and Paphos.

Your match

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

Oaxaca
Best match
54match

Wins on food and drink and shopping with your weighting.

Paphos
50match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Oaxaca in July

28 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
80 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
13 hdaylight a day

Paphos in July

30 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
27 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
OaxacaPaphos

Where the figures come from

Paphos has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Oaxaca: 1961-1990 normals, Oaxaca, Oax. (1.1 km from centre). Paphos: 1991-2020 normals, Paphos Airport (8.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureOaxacaPaphos
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaTurkish, Greek, Modern Greek
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzG240 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation1,555 m72 m
Main airportXoxocotlán International Airport (OAX)7 km from centre14 non-stop destinationsPaphos International Airport (PFO)8 km from centre58 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days17 days

By the numbers

MeasureOaxacaPaphos
City population258,91335,961
People per km²3,0281,987
Museums within 10 km104
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km22
Swim season, months above 21 °C-6 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Oaxaca or Paphos 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.