VacationSelector
The Santa Catalina arch below Volcan de Agua, Antigua Guatemala
Antigua GuatemalaThe Santa Catalina arch below Volcan de Agua
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo

Photos: Antigua Guatemala by Chad Davis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Antigua Guatemala or Puerto Escondido?

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 Antigua Guatemala for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • day trips

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

Choose Puerto Escondido for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Puerto Escondido’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. Antigua Guatemala 6, Puerto Escondido 82: Puerto Escondido leads by 76 points.
Food & drink. Antigua Guatemala and Puerto Escondido are level on 48.
Culture & sights. Antigua Guatemala 68, Puerto Escondido 8: Antigua Guatemala leads by 60 points.
Nightlife. Antigua Guatemala 34, Puerto Escondido 45: Puerto Escondido leads by 11 points.
Nature & outdoors. Antigua Guatemala and Puerto Escondido are level on 78.
Day trips. Antigua Guatemala 55, Puerto Escondido 35: Antigua Guatemala leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Antigua Guatemala 38, Puerto Escondido 42: Puerto Escondido leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Antigua Guatemala 60, Puerto Escondido 40: Antigua Guatemala leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Antigua Guatemala 45, Puerto Escondido 22: Antigua Guatemala leads by 23 points.
Affordability. Antigua Guatemala 67, Puerto Escondido 68: Puerto Escondido leads by 1 points.
Live music & performing arts. Antigua Guatemala 22, Puerto Escondido 12: Antigua Guatemala leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Antigua Guatemala 42, Puerto Escondido 58: Puerto Escondido leads by 16 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Antigua Guatemala and Puerto Escondido.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Antigua Guatemala
47match

Wins on culture and sights and shopping with your weighting.

Puerto Escondido
45match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Antigua Guatemala in July

25 °Cdaytime high
17 °Cnight-time low
188 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
13 hdaylight a day

Puerto Escondido in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
116 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Antigua GuatemalaPuerto Escondido

Where the figures come from

Antigua Guatemala 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.

Puerto Escondido's temperatures are measured 66 km from the centre, at Puerto Angel, Oax..

Puerto Escondido 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. Antigua Guatemala: 1998-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Guatemala Aeropuertola Aurora (23.5 km from centre). Puerto Escondido: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (65.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureAntigua GuatemalaPuerto Escondido
Official languageSpanishSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyQuetzal (GTQ)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-6
Emergency numberPolice 110/120, ambulance 128, fire 123911
Elevation1,582 m60 m
Main airportLa Aurora International Airport (GUA)22 km from centre19 non-stop destinationsPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureAntigua GuatemalaPuerto Escondido
City population59,09129,903
Museums within 10 km20
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Antigua Guatemala or Puerto Escondido 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. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.