Photos: Cape Town by Stephan Louis, Pexels License; Puerto Plata by CareAhLine, CC0.
Cape Town or Puerto Plata?
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 Cape Town for
- live music and the arts
- food and drink
- nature and the outdoors
What lies behind each score is written up on Cape Town’s own page.
Scoreboard
Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.
What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cape Town and Puerto Plata.
Your match
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.
Wins on live music and the arts and food and drink with your weighting.
Wins on beaches with your weighting.
What matters to you?
When should you go?
Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.
Cape Town in July
Puerto Plata in July
Daytime high, °C
Rainfall in the month, mm
Where the figures come from
Puerto Plata 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. Cape Town: 1991-2020 normals, Cape Town Airport (17.5 km from centre). Puerto Plata: 1993-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Puerto Plata (15.3 km from centre).
Before you go
| Measure | Cape Town | Puerto Plata |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | English, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign Language | Spanish |
| Currency | Rand (ZAR) | Dominican Peso (DOP) |
| Sockets | CMN230 V, 50 Hz | AB110 V, 60 Hz |
| Driving side | Left | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+2 | UTC-4 |
| Emergency number | 112 | 911 |
| Elevation | 5 m | 34 m |
| Main airport | Cape Town International Airport (CPT)18 km from centre45 non-stop destinations | Gregorio Luperon International Airport (POP)13 km from centre16 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 13 days | 13 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Cape Town | Puerto Plata |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 3,776,313 | - |
| People per km² | 1,538 | - |
| Museums within 10 km | 22 | 1 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 3 | 0 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | None | 12 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cape Town or Puerto Plata somewhere new.