VacationSelector
The town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture, Playa del Carmen
Playa del CarmenThe town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture
Stortorget in Gamla stan, Stockholm
StockholmStortorget in Gamla stan

Photos: Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Stockholm by Jorge Franganillo, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Playa del Carmen or Stockholm?

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
  • prices
  • nightlife

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

Choose Stockholm for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Stockholm’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, Stockholm 40: Playa del Carmen leads by 48 points.
Food & drink. Playa del Carmen 52, Stockholm 64: Stockholm leads by 12 points.
Culture & sights. Playa del Carmen 12, Stockholm 77: Stockholm leads by 65 points.
Nightlife. Playa del Carmen 66, Stockholm 57: Playa del Carmen leads by 9 points.
Nature & outdoors. Playa del Carmen 74, Stockholm 72: Playa del Carmen leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Playa del Carmen 72, Stockholm 68: Playa del Carmen leads by 4 points.
Good for families. Playa del Carmen 78, Stockholm 82: Stockholm leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Playa del Carmen 55, Stockholm 84: Stockholm leads by 29 points.
Shopping & style. Playa del Carmen 38, Stockholm 70: Stockholm leads by 32 points.
Affordability. Playa del Carmen 52, Stockholm 30: Playa del Carmen leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. Playa del Carmen 22, Stockholm 65: Stockholm leads by 43 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Playa del Carmen 54, Stockholm 56: Stockholm leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Playa del Carmen and Stockholm.

Your match

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

Playa del Carmen
55match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Stockholm
Best match
64match

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

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
96 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Stockholm in July

23 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
65 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
16 °Csea
18 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Playa del CarmenStockholm

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.

Stockholm 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.

Stockholm's sunshine is measured 26 km from the centre, at Stockholm Observatoriet.

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. Stockholm: 2003-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Stockholm Bromma Airport (7.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePlaya del CarmenStockholm
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSwedish
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Swedish Krona (SEK)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation8 m22 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre137 non-stop destinationsStockholm-Arlanda Airport (ARN)36 km from centre174 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasurePlaya del CarmenStockholm
City population304,942984,748
People per km²-5,260
Museums within 10 km0266
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km03
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

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