Photos: Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.
Playa del Carmen or Santa Fe?
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
- beaches
- nightlife
- families
What lies behind each score is written up on Playa del Carmen’s own page.
Choose Santa Fe for
- culture and sights
- live music and the arts
- shopping
What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Fe’s own page.
Scoreboard
Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.
What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Playa del Carmen and Santa Fe.
Your match
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.
Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.
Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts 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
Santa Fe in July
Daytime high, °C
Rainfall in the month, mm
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.
Santa Fe's station stands 199 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.
Santa Fe 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. Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre).
Before you go
| Measure | Playa del Carmen | Santa Fe |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Spanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya | - |
| Currency | Mexican Peso (MXN) | US Dollar (USD) |
| Sockets | AB127 V, 60 Hz | AB120 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC-5 | UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer |
| Emergency number | 911 | 911 |
| Elevation | 8 m | 2,134 m |
| Main airport | Cancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre137 non-stop destinations | Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 9 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Playa del Carmen | Santa Fe |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 304,942 | 87,505 |
| People per km² | - | 645 |
| Museums within 10 km | 0 | 10 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 0 | 0 |
| 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 Playa del Carmen or Santa Fe somewhere new.