VacationSelector
The beach with the bay and the skyline behind, Acapulco
AcapulcoThe beach with the bay and the skyline behind
The church of San Estanislao at Altos de Chavón, La Romana
La RomanaThe church of San Estanislao at Altos de Chavón

Photos: Acapulco by Felicia Navarrete, Pexels License; La Romana by Edgar El, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Acapulco or La Romana?

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 Acapulco for

  • nightlife
  • prices
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Acapulco’s own page.

Choose La Romana for

  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on La Romana’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. Acapulco 80, La Romana 84: La Romana leads by 4 points.
Food & drink. Acapulco 55, La Romana 38: Acapulco leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Acapulco 28, La Romana 24: Acapulco leads by 4 points.
Nightlife. Acapulco 64, La Romana 30: Acapulco leads by 34 points.
Nature & outdoors. Acapulco 50, La Romana 62: La Romana leads by 12 points.
Day trips. Acapulco 15, La Romana 52: La Romana leads by 37 points.
Good for families. Acapulco 45, La Romana 56: La Romana leads by 11 points.
Getting around. Acapulco 30, La Romana 24: Acapulco leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. Acapulco 32, La Romana 28: Acapulco leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Acapulco 74, La Romana 50: Acapulco leads by 24 points.
Live music & performing arts. Acapulco 26, La Romana 17: Acapulco leads by 9 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Acapulco 32, La Romana 44: La Romana leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Acapulco and La Romana.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Acapulco
44match

Wins on nightlife and prices with your weighting.

La Romana
42match

Wins on day trips and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Acapulco in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
226 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

La Romana in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
87 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
AcapulcoLa Romana

Where the figures come from

La Romana's temperatures are measured 65 km from the centre, at Punta Cana.

La Romana 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.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Acapulco: 1991-2020 normals, Acapulco, Gro. (5.9 km from centre). La Romana: 1993-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Punta Cana (65.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAcapulcoLa Romana
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Dominican Peso (DOP)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB110 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-4
Emergency number911911
Elevation18 m10 m
Main airportGeneral Juan N. Álvarez International Airport (ACA)18 km from centre10 non-stop destinationsCasa De Campo International Airport (LRM)7 km from centre13 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureAcapulcoLa Romana
City population658,609139,238
People per km²350512
Museums within 10 km30
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Acapulco or La Romana somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.