VacationSelector
The town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture, Playa del Carmen
Playa del CarmenThe town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture
Portofino and its bay from the hillside, Portofino
PortofinoPortofino and its bay from the hillside

Photos: Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Portofino by Michal Osmenda, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Playa del Carmen or Portofino?

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 Playa del Carmen for

  • nightlife
  • families
  • prices

What lies behind each score is written up on Playa del Carmen’s own page.

Choose Portofino for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Portofino’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. Playa del Carmen 88, Portofino 60: Playa del Carmen leads by 28 points.
Food & drink. Playa del Carmen 52, Portofino 36: Playa del Carmen leads by 16 points.
Culture & sights. Playa del Carmen 12, Portofino 22: Portofino leads by 10 points.
Nightlife. Playa del Carmen 66, Portofino 14: Playa del Carmen leads by 52 points.
Nature & outdoors. Playa del Carmen 74, Portofino 77: Portofino leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Playa del Carmen 72, Portofino 76: Portofino leads by 4 points.
Good for families. Playa del Carmen 78, Portofino 33: Playa del Carmen leads by 45 points.
Getting around. Playa del Carmen 55, Portofino 50: Playa del Carmen leads by 5 points.
Shopping & style. Playa del Carmen 38, Portofino 29: Playa del Carmen leads by 9 points.
Affordability. Playa del Carmen 52, Portofino 9: Playa del Carmen leads by 43 points.
Live music & performing arts. Playa del Carmen 22, Portofino 7: Playa del Carmen leads by 15 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Playa del Carmen 54, Portofino 42: 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: Playa del Carmen and Portofino.

Your match

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

Playa del Carmen
Best match
55match

Wins on nightlife and families with your weighting.

Portofino
38match

Wins on culture and sights 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.

Playa del Carmen in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
96 mmrain in the month
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Portofino in July

27 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
32 mmrain in the month
24 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Playa del CarmenPortofino

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.

Portofino's temperatures are measured 31 km from the centre, at Genova / Sestri.

Portofino 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. Playa del Carmen: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Portofino: 1991-2020 normals, Genova / Sestri (31 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePlaya del CarmenPortofino
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaItalian
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation8 m20 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre135 non-stop destinationsGenoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport (GOA)32 km from centre25 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasurePlaya del CarmenPortofino
City population304,942355
People per km²-142
Museums within 10 km014
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Playa del Carmen or Portofino somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.