VacationSelector
Parliament Hill across the Ottawa River, Ottawa
OttawaParliament Hill across the Ottawa River
El Castillo above the beach at Tulum, Tulum
TulumEl Castillo above the beach at Tulum

Photos: Ottawa by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Tulum by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Ottawa 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 Ottawa for

  • getting around
  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights

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

Choose Tulum for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • nightlife

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. Ottawa 35, Tulum 88: Tulum leads by 53 points.
Food & drink. Ottawa 45, Tulum 52: Tulum leads by 7 points.
Culture & sights. Ottawa 62, Tulum 30: Ottawa leads by 32 points.
Nightlife. Ottawa 35, Tulum 60: Tulum leads by 25 points.
Nature & outdoors. Ottawa 68, Tulum 76: Tulum leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Ottawa 55, Tulum 68: Tulum leads by 13 points.
Good for families. Ottawa 68, Tulum 60: Ottawa leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Ottawa 62, Tulum 25: Ottawa leads by 37 points.
Shopping & style. Ottawa 40, Tulum 35: Ottawa leads by 5 points.
Affordability. Ottawa 40, Tulum 30: Ottawa leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. Ottawa 52, Tulum 15: Ottawa leads by 37 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Ottawa 55, Tulum 85: Tulum leads by 30 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Ottawa and Tulum.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Ottawa
51match

Wins on getting around and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Tulum
52match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Ottawa in July

27 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
82 mmrain in the month
No seasea
15 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

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
OttawaTulum

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. Ottawa: 1991-2020 normals, Ottawa CDA RCS (5.3 km from centre). Tulum: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureOttawaTulum
Official languageFrench, EnglishSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyCanadian Dollar (CAD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number911911
Elevation70 m5 m
Main airportOttawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport (YOW)12 km from centre46 non-stop destinationsFelipe Carrillo Puerto International Airport Tulum (TQO)21 km from centre11 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureOttawaTulum
City population1,017,44933,374
People per km²366-
Museums within 10 km200
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Ottawa 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. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.