VacationSelector
The beach with its parasols and the boardwalk, Bethany Beach
Bethany BeachThe beach with its parasols and the boardwalk
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo

Photos: Bethany Beach by Doug Olson, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Bethany Beach 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 Bethany Beach for

  • families
  • day trips
  • shopping

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

Choose Puerto Escondido for

  • prices
  • nightlife
  • nature and the outdoors

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. Bethany Beach 72, Puerto Escondido 82: Puerto Escondido leads by 10 points.
Food & drink. Bethany Beach 35, Puerto Escondido 48: Puerto Escondido leads by 13 points.
Culture & sights. Bethany Beach 10, Puerto Escondido 8: Bethany Beach leads by 2 points.
Nightlife. Bethany Beach 12, Puerto Escondido 45: Puerto Escondido leads by 33 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bethany Beach 48, Puerto Escondido 78: Puerto Escondido leads by 30 points.
Day trips. Bethany Beach 45, Puerto Escondido 35: Bethany Beach leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Bethany Beach 66, Puerto Escondido 42: Bethany Beach leads by 24 points.
Getting around. Bethany Beach 33, Puerto Escondido 40: Puerto Escondido leads by 7 points.
Shopping & style. Bethany Beach 28, Puerto Escondido 22: Bethany Beach leads by 6 points.
Affordability. Bethany Beach 30, Puerto Escondido 68: Puerto Escondido leads by 38 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bethany Beach 14, Puerto Escondido 12: Bethany Beach leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bethany Beach 33, Puerto Escondido 58: Puerto Escondido leads by 25 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bethany Beach and Puerto Escondido.

Your match

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

Bethany Beach
36match

Wins on families and day trips with your weighting.

Puerto Escondido
Best match
45match

Wins on prices and nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Bethany Beach in July

31 °Cdaytime high
20 °Cnight-time low
95 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
23 °Csea
15 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
Bethany BeachPuerto Escondido

Where the figures come from

Bethany Beach's temperatures are measured 45 km from the centre, at Salisbury / Quail Ridge.

Bethany Beach 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. Bethany Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Salisbury / Quail Ridge (44.9 km from centre). Puerto Escondido: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (65.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBethany BeachPuerto Escondido
Official language-Spanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation3 m60 m
Main airportSalisbury Ocean City Wicomico Regional Airport (SBY)45 km from centre4 non-stop destinationsPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureBethany BeachPuerto Escondido
City population95429,903
People per km²318-
Museums within 10 km00
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C3 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bethany Beach 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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. 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.