VacationSelector
Wat Pho, Bangkok
BangkokWat Pho
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills

Photos: Bangkok by Lu Zhao, Pexels License; Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Bangkok or Puerto Vallarta?

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 Bangkok for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • food and drink

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

Choose Puerto Vallarta for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Puerto Vallarta’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. Bangkok 12, Puerto Vallarta 85: Puerto Vallarta leads by 73 points.
Food & drink. Bangkok 95, Puerto Vallarta 62: Bangkok leads by 33 points.
Culture & sights. Bangkok 80, Puerto Vallarta 28: Bangkok leads by 52 points.
Nightlife. Bangkok 85, Puerto Vallarta 66: Bangkok leads by 19 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bangkok 25, Puerto Vallarta 76: Puerto Vallarta leads by 51 points.
Day trips. Bangkok 72, Puerto Vallarta 55: Bangkok leads by 17 points.
Good for families. Bangkok 50, Puerto Vallarta 65: Puerto Vallarta leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Bangkok 50, Puerto Vallarta 45: Bangkok leads by 5 points.
Shopping & style. Bangkok 80, Puerto Vallarta 42: Bangkok leads by 38 points.
Affordability. Bangkok 85, Puerto Vallarta 60: Bangkok leads by 25 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bangkok 52, Puerto Vallarta 32: Bangkok leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bangkok 75, Puerto Vallarta 52: Bangkok leads by 23 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bangkok and Puerto Vallarta.

Your match

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

Bangkok
Best match
63match

Wins on culture and sights and shopping with your weighting.

Puerto Vallarta
56match

Wins on beaches 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.

Bangkok in July

34 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
184 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Puerto Vallarta in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
209 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
BangkokPuerto Vallarta

Where the figures come from

Puerto Vallarta 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. Bangkok: 1991-2020 normals, Bangkok (5.7 km from centre). Puerto Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureBangkokPuerto Vallarta
Official languageThaiSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyBaht (THB)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsABCF220 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+7UTC-6
Emergency numberPolice 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199911
Elevation2 m101 m
Main airportSuvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)26 km from centre150 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-9 days

By the numbers

MeasureBangkokPuerto Vallarta
City population5,676,648224,166
People per km²3,6194,311
Museums within 10 km592
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
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 Bangkok or Puerto Vallarta 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). 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.