VacationSelector
San Petronio on Piazza Maggiore, Bologna
BolognaSan Petronio on Piazza Maggiore
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills

Photos: Bologna by Vanni Lazzari, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Bologna 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 Bologna for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Bologna’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. Bologna 30, Puerto Vallarta 85: Puerto Vallarta leads by 55 points.
Food & drink. Bologna 82, Puerto Vallarta 62: Bologna leads by 20 points.
Culture & sights. Bologna 77, Puerto Vallarta 28: Bologna leads by 49 points.
Nightlife. Bologna 58, Puerto Vallarta 66: Puerto Vallarta leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bologna 52, Puerto Vallarta 76: Puerto Vallarta leads by 24 points.
Day trips. Bologna 95, Puerto Vallarta 55: Bologna leads by 40 points.
Good for families. Bologna 50, Puerto Vallarta 65: Puerto Vallarta leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Bologna 76, Puerto Vallarta 45: Bologna leads by 31 points.
Shopping & style. Bologna 55, Puerto Vallarta 42: Bologna leads by 13 points.
Affordability. Bologna 48, Puerto Vallarta 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 12 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bologna 60, Puerto Vallarta 32: Bologna leads by 28 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bologna 40, Puerto Vallarta 52: Puerto Vallarta leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bologna and Puerto Vallarta.

Your match

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

Bologna
Best match
60match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips 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.

Bologna in July

32 °Cdaytime high
20 °Cnight-time low
39 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 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

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
BolognaPuerto Vallarta

Where the figures come from

Bologna 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.

Bologna's sunshine is measured 82 km from the centre, at Cervia.

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. Bologna: 1991-2020 normals, Bologna / Borgo Panigale (5.5 km from centre). Puerto Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureBolognaPuerto Vallarta
Official languageItalianSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number112911
Elevation54 m101 m
Main airportBologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport (BLQ)6 km from centre98 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureBolognaPuerto Vallarta
City population387,971224,166
People per km²2,7544,311
Museums within 10 km682
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km31
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 Bologna 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. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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. 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. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.