VacationSelector
Skiers among snow-covered firs, Beaver Creek
Beaver CreekSkiers among snow-covered firs
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills

Photos: Beaver Creek by Joe Lin, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Beaver Creek 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 Beaver Creek for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • live music and the arts
  • wellness

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

Choose Puerto Vallarta for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • nightlife

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. Beaver Creek 6, Puerto Vallarta 85: Puerto Vallarta leads by 79 points.
Food & drink. Beaver Creek 38, Puerto Vallarta 62: Puerto Vallarta leads by 24 points.
Culture & sights. Beaver Creek 7, Puerto Vallarta 28: Puerto Vallarta leads by 21 points.
Nightlife. Beaver Creek 12, Puerto Vallarta 66: Puerto Vallarta leads by 54 points.
Nature & outdoors. Beaver Creek 90, Puerto Vallarta 76: Beaver Creek leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Beaver Creek 40, Puerto Vallarta 55: Puerto Vallarta leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Beaver Creek 62, Puerto Vallarta 65: Puerto Vallarta leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Beaver Creek and Puerto Vallarta are level on 45.
Shopping & style. Beaver Creek 22, Puerto Vallarta 42: Puerto Vallarta leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Beaver Creek 5, Puerto Vallarta 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 55 points.
Live music & performing arts. Beaver Creek 36, Puerto Vallarta 32: Beaver Creek leads by 4 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Beaver Creek 55, Puerto Vallarta 52: Beaver Creek leads by 3 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Beaver Creek and Puerto Vallarta.

Your match

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

Beaver Creek
35match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Puerto Vallarta
Best match
56match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Beaver Creek in July

29 °Cdaytime high
10 °Cnight-time low
31 mmrain in the month
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Puerto Vallarta in July

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

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Beaver CreekPuerto Vallarta

Where the figures come from

Beaver Creek's temperatures are measured 34 km from the centre, at Eagle County / Gypsum.

Beaver Creek's station stands 268 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Beaver Creek 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 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. Beaver Creek: 1992-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Eagle County / Gypsum (33.8 km from centre). Puerto Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureBeaver CreekPuerto Vallarta
Official language-Spanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-7, UTC-6 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation2,264 m101 m
Main airportEagle County Regional Airport (EGE)34 km from centre16 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureBeaver CreekPuerto Vallarta
City population-224,166
People per km²-4,311
Museums within 10 km02
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
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 Beaver Creek or Puerto Vallarta somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national 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). 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.