VacationSelector
The town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture, Playa del Carmen
Playa del CarmenThe town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture
The harbour front with the church tower above the houses, Saint-Tropez
Saint-TropezThe harbour front with the church tower above the houses

Photos: Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Saint-Tropez by AXP Photography, Pexels License.

Playa del Carmen or Saint-Tropez?

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

  • prices
  • families
  • getting around

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

Choose Saint-Tropez for

  • shopping
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Saint-Tropez’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, Saint-Tropez 82: Playa del Carmen leads by 6 points.
Food & drink. Playa del Carmen 52, Saint-Tropez 48: Playa del Carmen leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Playa del Carmen 12, Saint-Tropez 35: Saint-Tropez leads by 23 points.
Nightlife. Playa del Carmen 66, Saint-Tropez 60: Playa del Carmen leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Playa del Carmen 74, Saint-Tropez 72: Playa del Carmen leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Playa del Carmen 72, Saint-Tropez 57: Playa del Carmen leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Playa del Carmen 78, Saint-Tropez 42: Playa del Carmen leads by 36 points.
Getting around. Playa del Carmen 55, Saint-Tropez 32: Playa del Carmen leads by 23 points.
Shopping & style. Playa del Carmen 38, Saint-Tropez 64: Saint-Tropez leads by 26 points.
Affordability. Playa del Carmen 52, Saint-Tropez 8: Playa del Carmen leads by 44 points.
Live music & performing arts. Playa del Carmen 22, Saint-Tropez 18: Playa del Carmen leads by 4 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Playa del Carmen 54, Saint-Tropez 35: Playa del Carmen leads by 19 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Playa del Carmen and Saint-Tropez.

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 prices and families with your weighting.

Saint-Tropez
46match

Wins on shopping and culture and sights 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

Saint-Tropez in July

32 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
10 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
23 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Playa del CarmenSaint-Tropez

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.

Saint-Tropez 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.

Saint-Tropez's sunshine is measured 62 km from the centre, at Nice.

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. Saint-Tropez: 1999-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Le Luc (24.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePlaya del CarmenSaint-Tropez
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaFrench
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCE230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation8 m0 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre135 non-stop destinationsNice-Côte d'Azur Airport (NCE)64 km from centre130 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasurePlaya del CarmenSaint-Tropez
City population304,9423,582
People per km²-320
Museums within 10 km04
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months3 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Playa del Carmen or Saint-Tropez 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.