VacationSelector
The town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture, Playa del Carmen
Playa del CarmenThe town beach and the Portal Maya sculpture
The red cable car above Wellington, Wellington
WellingtonThe red cable car above Wellington

Photos: Playa del Carmen by lazyweaver, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Wellington by lumoplank, CC0.

Playa del Carmen or Wellington?

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
  • wellness

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

Choose Wellington for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Wellington’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, Wellington 33: Playa del Carmen leads by 55 points.
Food & drink. Playa del Carmen 52, Wellington 62: Wellington leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Playa del Carmen 12, Wellington 44: Wellington leads by 32 points.
Nightlife. Playa del Carmen 66, Wellington 45: Playa del Carmen leads by 21 points.
Nature & outdoors. Playa del Carmen 74, Wellington 78: Wellington leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Playa del Carmen 72, Wellington 40: Playa del Carmen leads by 32 points.
Good for families. Playa del Carmen 78, Wellington 62: Playa del Carmen leads by 16 points.
Getting around. Playa del Carmen 55, Wellington 68: Wellington leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Playa del Carmen 38, Wellington 42: Wellington leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Playa del Carmen 52, Wellington 33: Playa del Carmen leads by 19 points.
Live music & performing arts. Playa del Carmen 22, Wellington 56: Wellington leads by 34 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Playa del Carmen 54, Wellington 30: Playa del Carmen leads by 24 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Playa del Carmen and Wellington.

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.

Wellington
49match

Wins on live music and the arts 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

Wellington in July

12 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
111 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
12 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Playa del CarmenWellington

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.

Wellington's sunshine is measured 47 km from the centre, at Paraparaumu Aerodrome.

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. Wellington: 1961-1990 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Wellington Aerodrome Aws (5.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePlaya del CarmenWellington
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaEnglish, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency number911111
Elevation8 m0 m
Main airportCancún International Airport (CUN)50 km from centre137 non-stop destinationsWellington International Airport (WLG)5 km from centre20 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasurePlaya del CarmenWellington
City population304,942216,200
People per km²-487
Museums within 10 km012
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 Wellington 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. 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.