How Playa del Carmen and Medellin compare on cost, visas, working hours, weather, internet and safety. Every figure comes from our city guides and tools, checked and dated there.
The short answer
Playa del Carmen Pick it for faster internet and a lower US travel advisory level.
Medellin Pick it for a lower visa income bar.
Everyday costsEven
What we have checked of rent, a coworking desk, weekday lunches and getting around comes to $653 to $1,300 (£490 to £973) a month in Playa del Carmen, against $1,080 to $2,110 (£810 to £1,580) in Medellin. We can't call it: Playa del Carmen has no checked figure for transport, so that total leaves it out.
The visaMedellin
Medellin asks for less income. Playa del Carmen: Residente Temporal, economic solvency, about $4,050 to $4,630 a month (USD 4,049 a month, sources differ). Medellin: Visa V Nomada Digital, about $1,650 a month (COP 5,252,715 a month).
A London 9 to 5Even
A start in the small hours in both: 03:00 to 11:00 in Playa del Carmen, 03:00 to 11:00 in Medellin.
A New York 9 to 5Even
Normal hours in both: 08:00 to 16:00 in Playa del Carmen, 08:00 to 16:00 in Medellin.
WeatherEven
Comfortable months on our best-time rule: 7 in Playa del Carmen, 6 in Medellin. Both are comfortable in January and February.
InternetPlaya del Carmen
Playa del Carmen is faster. Typical download speed: 117 Mbps in Playa del Carmen, 66.5 Mbps in Medellin, from each guide.
SafetyPlaya del Carmen
Playa del Carmen. The US State Department puts Mexico at level 2 and Colombia at level 3.
Side by side
Measure
Playa del Carmen
Medellin
Country
Mexico
Colombia
Language
Spanish
Spanish
Currency
Mexican peso (MXN)
Colombian peso (COP)
Plugs
Type A and B, 127V
Type A and B, 110V
Time zone
UTC−5 today
UTC−5 today
A month's basics
$653 to $1,300 (£490 to £973), with transport missing
$1,080 to $2,110 (£810 to £1,580)
Remote work visa
Residente Temporal, economic solvency
Visa V Nomada Digital
Income needed
About $4,050 to $4,630 a month (USD 4,049 a month, sources differ)
About $1,650 a month (COP 5,252,715 a month)
Without a visa
British and American passports: up to 180 days, at the border officer's discretion
British and American passports: 90 days, up to 180 in a year
Tax residency
No day count: tax residence follows where your home is
183 days in any 365
Download speed
117 Mbps
66.5 Mbps
Comfortable months
January, February, March, April, May, November and December
January, February, June, July, August and September
US travel advice
Level 2: increased caution
Level 3: reconsider travel
Meetups
None we could confirm
3 regular groups still running
Dollars and pounds at today's exchange rate. Download speeds are the typical figure from each guide, which says where it comes from: some are for the city, some for the whole country, so treat a small gap as no gap.
What a month costs
Rent, a coworking desk, a cheap lunch on each of 22 working days, and getting around: the same four costs our budget calculator uses. The rent figures aren't always the same kind of figure (some are furnished one-beds, some are averages across every size of flat), so read the note under each.
Playa del Carmen
$653 to $1,300£490 to £973 a month
Rent
$434 to $976Furnished one-bed: the cheapest Centro listings on a portal, October 2026, up to the bottom of a blog's Centro range. The two sources disagree, Colosio and Ejido can be less, and Centro often more. MXN 8,000 to 18,000
A desk
$136 to $201Coworking, a month: WorkZone from 2,500 up to Nest at 3,700, from a travel blog. Bunker runs up to 6,900. MXN 2,500 to 3,700
Weekday lunches
$83 to $119Comida corrida, MXN 70 to 100 each, 22 working days
Getting around
No checked figureNo checked city bus fare or pass. Centro is walkable, and a taxi in town is MXN 60 to 120 a ride, from a blog
About $4,050 to $4,630 a month (USD 4,049 a month, sources differ); in pounds, about £3,040 to £3,480 a month
How long
One to four years, then permanent residence
What it leads to
Citizenship after five years, with exams
Without a visa
British and American passports: up to 180 days, at the border officer's discretion
The catch. Every consulate prints its own figure. Check the sheet for the one you will apply at, and apply before you travel: it cannot be done inside Mexico.
About $1,650 a month (COP 5,252,715 a month); in pounds, about £1,240 a month
How long
Up to two years
What it leads to
Nowhere: time on it does not count towards residence
Without a visa
British and American passports: 90 days, up to 180 in a year
The catch. The bar is pinned to the minimum wage, so it moves every January. The 2026 wage survived a court challenge in July, though a final ruling is still due.
The average high in °C each month, coloured by the rule on our best-time page: green is a high of 20 to 32°C with under 150mm of rain; red is a high of 38°C or more or under 12°C, 250mm of rain or more, or 33°C or more with 150mm of rain or more. Hover over a month for its rain.
Quintana Roo isn't in an area advised against, but the UK says be very cautious after dark in downtown Playa del Carmen. Since 2021, several shootings have affected tourists.
The US level is for the whole country, as the State Department sets it, and some countries have stricter advice for particular regions.
Who each one suits
From each city guide, word for word.
Playa del Carmen
It suits
Someone who wants a walkable beach town a bus ride from Cancun airport, a working coworking scene, and a life without a car: ADO buses, colectivos, the Tren Maya and the Cozumel ferry. It works best from December to March, and for someone earning in dollars or pounds who is happy to live in Colosio or Ejido and walk or ride into Centro. The visa is the same as for the rest of Mexico: a temporary residence permit from a consulate, with a route to permanent residence after four years.
It doesn't suit
Anyone who wants Mexico without the tourism. Downtown is a resort strip that GOV.UK tells you to be very cautious in after dark, where shootings have affected tourists since 2021 and British travellers have been assaulted, some involving hotel staff, taxi drivers and security staff. From May to July the beach can be brown with sargassum, and the 2026 season was forecast to be heavier than 2025. June to November is the wet season and hurricane season, and October brings 284mm of rain. Centro rents are tourist-priced, and foreigners pay double on the train and at the ruins. If you want culture, cheap rent and Spanish immersion, look at Merida or Oaxaca instead.
You want a city where the weather stops being a variable — 21 to 22 degrees every month, no heating, no air conditioning, no seasonal reckoning — and where a genuinely good metro means you never need a car. It suits asynchronous or US-facing work, because UTC-5 with no clock changes is the cleanest overlap with North America you will find down here. And it suits anyone who will actually learn Spanish, because the reward curve is steep: the difference between the Poblado bubble at 3.3 million pesos a month and real Medellin at 2.3 is mostly linguistic.
It doesn't suit
You are expecting the Instagram version. This is a Spanish-speaking city with the English proficiency of a country ranked 76th in the world, and every interaction that matters happens at a counter with a queue. It rains on twenty-five days in October. The nomad visa is a two-year cul-de-sac that leads nowhere near residency, the income bar jumped 23 per cent overnight because it is pinned to the minimum wage, and citizenship got harder rather than easier. And be clear-eyed about the crime: the murder rate is a third of the national average and falling, but El Poblado and Laureles are first and second in the city for drug-assisted robbery, with 428 cases by August against 227 in all of 2025. Both the British and American governments say so in writing.
