VacationSelector
Kek Lok Si temple on the hillside, Penang
PenangKek Lok Si temple on the hillside
The town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture, Playa del Carmen
Playa del CarmenThe town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture

Photos: Penang by Supanut Arunoprayote, CC BY 4.0, cropped; Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Penang 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 Penang for

  • culture and sights
  • food and drink
  • prices

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

Choose Playa del Carmen for

  • beaches
  • day trips
  • 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. Penang 44, Playa del Carmen 88: Playa del Carmen leads by 44 points.
Food & drink. Penang 86, Playa del Carmen 52: Penang leads by 34 points.
Culture & sights. Penang 70, Playa del Carmen 12: Penang leads by 58 points.
Nightlife. Penang 40, Playa del Carmen 66: Playa del Carmen leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Penang 55, Playa del Carmen 74: Playa del Carmen leads by 19 points.
Day trips. Penang 42, Playa del Carmen 72: Playa del Carmen leads by 30 points.
Good for families. Penang 52, Playa del Carmen 78: Playa del Carmen leads by 26 points.
Getting around. Penang 40, Playa del Carmen 55: Playa del Carmen leads by 15 points.
Shopping & style. Penang 42, Playa del Carmen 38: Penang leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Penang 78, Playa del Carmen 52: Penang leads by 26 points.
Live music & performing arts. Penang 30, Playa del Carmen 22: Penang leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Penang 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: Penang and Playa del Carmen.

Your match

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

Penang
52match

Wins on culture and sights and food and drink with your weighting.

Playa del Carmen
Best match
55match

Wins on beaches and day trips with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Penang in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
189 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
12 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

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
PenangPlaya 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. Penang: 1991-2020 normals, Penang / Bayan Lepas (14.5 km from centre). Playa del Carmen: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasurePenangPlaya del Carmen
Official languageMalaySpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyMalaysian Ringgit (MYR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsG240 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+8UTC-5
Emergency number999911
Elevation4 m8 m
Main airportPenang International Airport (PEN)14 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsCancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre137 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-9 days

By the numbers

MeasurePenangPlaya del Carmen
City population794,313304,942
Museums within 10 km90
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Penang 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). 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. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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.