VacationSelector
The church of La Compania under a blue sky, Arequipa
ArequipaThe church of La Compania under a blue sky
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo

Photos: Arequipa by DocSlyper, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Arequipa 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 Arequipa for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Arequipa’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. Arequipa 8, Puerto Escondido 82: Puerto Escondido leads by 74 points.
Food & drink. Arequipa 66, Puerto Escondido 48: Arequipa leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Arequipa 64, Puerto Escondido 8: Arequipa leads by 56 points.
Nightlife. Arequipa 36, Puerto Escondido 45: Puerto Escondido leads by 9 points.
Nature & outdoors. Arequipa 74, Puerto Escondido 78: Puerto Escondido leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Arequipa 30, Puerto Escondido 35: Puerto Escondido leads by 5 points.
Good for families. Arequipa 35, Puerto Escondido 42: Puerto Escondido leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Arequipa 54, Puerto Escondido 40: Arequipa leads by 14 points.
Shopping & style. Arequipa 44, Puerto Escondido 22: Arequipa leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Arequipa 82, Puerto Escondido 68: Arequipa leads by 14 points.
Live music & performing arts. Arequipa 27, Puerto Escondido 12: Arequipa leads by 15 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Arequipa 34, Puerto Escondido 58: Puerto Escondido leads by 24 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Arequipa and Puerto Escondido.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Arequipa
46match

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.

Arequipa in July

21 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
11 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

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
ArequipaPuerto Escondido

Where the figures come from

Arequipa's station stands 203 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

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. Arequipa: 1991-2020 normals, Arequipa (9.2 km from centre). Puerto Escondido: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (65.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureArequipaPuerto Escondido
Official languageSpanish, Aymara, QuechuaSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencySol (PEN)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-6
Emergency number111 or 911911
Elevation2,335 m60 m
Main airportRodríguez Ballón International Airport (AQP)7 km from centre2 non-stop destinationsPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year17 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureArequipaPuerto Escondido
City population1,008,29029,903
People per km²1,551-
Museums within 10 km30
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 Arequipa 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.