Cancún vs Costa Rica

White resort building with palm trees, lounge chairs, and umbrellas line a sandy beach with turquoise water under clear blue sky.

Illuminated beachfront dining pavilion with white railings and thatched-roof bungalows reflected in the pool at dusk.

Cancún and Costa Rica, side by side: live travel advisories, our resort catalog's real guest data, and each destination's honest weather picture. Everything you need to break the tie.

Cancún guide · Costa Rica guide · How we score

By the numbers

Cancún compared with Costa Rica
Cancún	Measure	Costa Rica
Level 2: Exercise Increased Caution	U.S. travel advisory	Level 2: Exercise Increased Caution
28 (better)	Resorts in our catalog	7
★ 4.6 (better)	Average guest rating	★ 4.4
$39–$349/night pp (better)	Nightly rates	$88–$289/night pp
11 of 28	Adults-only resorts	1 of 7
In the hurricane belt	Hurricane exposure	Low hurricane risk (better)
June–October, heaviest September–October	Rainy season	May–November ('green season'), with September–October seriously wet
December–April	Sweet spot	December–April, bone-dry in Guanacaste
~2–4.5h from most US hubs	Flight time	~3.5–5.5h from the US (nonstops to Liberia)
Mexican peso; USD widely accepted in the hotel zones	Currency	Costa Rican colón – USD widely accepted

Advisory levels sync from travel.state.gov; catalog figures reflect the resorts we've researched, not every hotel in the country. A marked row is one we are willing to call; rows without a mark are a matter of taste, or we have no comparable figure for both sides.

On the map

Cancún

Costa Rica

Weather, month by month

Month-by-month average high temperature and rainfall for Cancún and Costa Rica
Measure	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Cancún · high °F	82	83	85	87	89	90	90	91	89	87	84	82
Costa Rica · high °F	91	92	93	93	91	88	88	88	87	86	87	89
Cancún · rain (in)	3.5	2.0	1.5	1.5	4.0	6.5	4.0	4.5	8.5	8.5	4.0	3.5
Costa Rica · rain (in)	0.1	0.1	0.2	0.7	7.7	9.0	5.9	7.9	13.0	12.2	4.3	0.5

Approximate climate normals for Cancún hotel zone and Guanacaste / Papagayo: planning guidance, not a forecast. A deeper tint is a higher number, read within its own row.