VacationSelector
The town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture, Playa del Carmen
Playa del CarmenThe town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture
The Warrior on a Horse, Macedonia Square, Skopje
SkopjeThe Warrior on a Horse, Macedonia Square

Photos: Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Skopje by George M. Groutas, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Playa del Carmen or Skopje?

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
  • families
  • wellness

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

Choose Skopje for

  • culture and sights
  • prices
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Skopje’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, Skopje 6: Playa del Carmen leads by 82 points.
Food & drink. Playa del Carmen and Skopje are level on 52.
Culture & sights. Playa del Carmen 12, Skopje 56: Skopje leads by 44 points.
Nightlife. Playa del Carmen 66, Skopje 42: Playa del Carmen leads by 24 points.
Nature & outdoors. Playa del Carmen 74, Skopje 70: Playa del Carmen leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Playa del Carmen 72, Skopje 56: Playa del Carmen leads by 16 points.
Good for families. Playa del Carmen 78, Skopje 35: Playa del Carmen leads by 43 points.
Getting around. Playa del Carmen 55, Skopje 45: Playa del Carmen leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Playa del Carmen 38, Skopje 40: Skopje leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Playa del Carmen 52, Skopje 80: Skopje leads by 28 points.
Live music & performing arts. Playa del Carmen 22, Skopje 38: Skopje leads by 16 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Playa del Carmen 54, Skopje 27: Playa del Carmen leads by 27 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Playa del Carmen and Skopje.

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 beaches and families with your weighting.

Skopje
46match

Wins on culture and sights and prices 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
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Skopje in July

32 °Cdaytime high
17 °Cnight-time low
31 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Playa del CarmenSkopje

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.

Skopje 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.

Skopje's sunshine is measured 68 km from the centre, at Stip.

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. Skopje: 1991-2020 (sunshine 1961-1990) normals, Skopje-Petrovec (18.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePlaya del CarmenSkopje
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaAlbanian, Macedonian
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Denar (MKD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation8 m251 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre137 non-stop destinationsSkopje International Airport (SKP)16 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasurePlaya del CarmenSkopje
City population304,942422,540
People per km²-739
Museums within 10 km017
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Playa del Carmen or Skopje 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. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.