VacationSelector
The town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture, Playa del Carmen
Playa del CarmenThe town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture
The Arctic Cathedral, Tromso
TromsoThe Arctic Cathedral

Photos: Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Tromso by Moyan Brenn, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Playa del Carmen or Tromso?

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
  • day trips
  • prices

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

Choose Tromso for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Tromso’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, Tromso 8: Playa del Carmen leads by 80 points.
Food & drink. Playa del Carmen 52, Tromso 36: Playa del Carmen leads by 16 points.
Culture & sights. Playa del Carmen 12, Tromso 27: Tromso leads by 15 points.
Nightlife. Playa del Carmen 66, Tromso 38: Playa del Carmen leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Playa del Carmen 74, Tromso 92: Tromso leads by 18 points.
Day trips. Playa del Carmen 72, Tromso 14: Playa del Carmen leads by 58 points.
Good for families. Playa del Carmen 78, Tromso 45: Playa del Carmen leads by 33 points.
Getting around. Playa del Carmen 55, Tromso 60: Tromso leads by 5 points.
Shopping & style. Playa del Carmen 38, Tromso 15: Playa del Carmen leads by 23 points.
Affordability. Playa del Carmen 52, Tromso 11: Playa del Carmen leads by 41 points.
Live music & performing arts. Playa del Carmen 22, Tromso 32: Tromso leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Playa del Carmen 54, Tromso 38: Playa del Carmen leads by 16 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Playa del Carmen and Tromso.

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 day trips with your weighting.

Tromso
35match

Wins on nature and the outdoors 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

Tromso in July

16 °Cdaytime high
9 °Cnight-time low
73 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
10 °Csea
24 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Playa del CarmenTromso

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.

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. Tromso: 1991-2020 normals, Tromso (0.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePlaya del CarmenTromso
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaNorwegian, Nynorsk, Bokmål, Sámi
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Norwegian Krone (NOK)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911Police 112, ambulance 113, fire 110
Elevation8 m20 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre137 non-stop destinationsTromsø Airport (TOS)4 km from centre49 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasurePlaya del CarmenTromso
City population304,94279,943
People per km²-32
Museums within 10 km08
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Tromso 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.