VacationSelector
The Explanada de España, Alicante
AlicanteThe Explanada de España
The main beach with the green hills behind, Sayulita
SayulitaThe main beach with the green hills behind

Photos: Alicante by Emilio Sánchez Hernández, Pexels License; Sayulita by Luisalvaz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Alicante or Sayulita?

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 Alicante for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • nightlife

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

Choose Sayulita for

  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Sayulita’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. Alicante 82, Sayulita 80: Alicante leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Alicante 67, Sayulita 42: Alicante leads by 25 points.
Culture & sights. Alicante 46, Sayulita 7: Alicante leads by 39 points.
Nightlife. Alicante 60, Sayulita 33: Alicante leads by 27 points.
Nature & outdoors. Alicante 63, Sayulita 72: Sayulita leads by 9 points.
Day trips. Alicante 72, Sayulita 42: Alicante leads by 30 points.
Good for families. Alicante 68, Sayulita 42: Alicante leads by 26 points.
Getting around. Alicante 66, Sayulita 48: Alicante leads by 18 points.
Shopping & style. Alicante 44, Sayulita 33: Alicante leads by 11 points.
Affordability. Alicante 60, Sayulita 45: Alicante leads by 15 points.
Live music & performing arts. Alicante 37, Sayulita 12: Alicante leads by 25 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Alicante 40, Sayulita 58: Sayulita leads by 18 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Alicante and Sayulita.

Your match

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

Alicante
Best match
59match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips with your weighting.

Sayulita
43match

Wins on wellness 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.

Alicante in July

30 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
3 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Sayulita in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
342 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
AlicanteSayulita

Where the figures come from

Sayulita 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. Alicante: 1991-2020 normals, Alicante (2.8 km from centre). Sayulita: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureAlicanteSayulita
Official languageSpanishSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number112911
Elevation3 m2 m
Main airportAlicante-Elche Miguel Hernández Airport (ALC)10 km from centre126 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)29 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureAlicanteSayulita
City population366,2213,390
People per km²1,819-
Museums within 10 km80
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Alicante or Sayulita 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). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.