VacationSelector
Lion's Head above Clifton Beach, Cape Town
Cape TownLion's Head above Clifton Beach
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills

Photos: Cape Town by Stephan Louis, Pexels License; Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cape Town 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 Cape Town for

  • culture and sights
  • nature and the outdoors
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Puerto Vallarta for

  • beaches
  • getting around
  • 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. Cape Town 58, Puerto Vallarta 85: Puerto Vallarta leads by 27 points.
Food & drink. Cape Town 72, Puerto Vallarta 62: Cape Town leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Cape Town 60, Puerto Vallarta 28: Cape Town leads by 32 points.
Nightlife. Cape Town 60, Puerto Vallarta 66: Puerto Vallarta leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cape Town 98, Puerto Vallarta 76: Cape Town leads by 22 points.
Day trips. Cape Town 68, Puerto Vallarta 55: Cape Town leads by 13 points.
Good for families. Cape Town 58, Puerto Vallarta 65: Puerto Vallarta leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Cape Town 35, Puerto Vallarta 45: Puerto Vallarta leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Cape Town 50, Puerto Vallarta 42: Cape Town leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Cape Town 72, Puerto Vallarta 60: Cape Town leads by 12 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cape Town 52, Puerto Vallarta 32: Cape Town leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cape Town 45, Puerto Vallarta 52: Puerto Vallarta leads by 7 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cape Town and Puerto Vallarta.

Your match

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

Cape Town
Best match
61match

Wins on culture and sights and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Puerto Vallarta
56match

Wins on beaches and getting around 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

18 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
89 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
15 °Csea
10 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
Cape TownPuerto 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. Cape Town: 1991-2020 normals, Cape Town Airport (17.5 km from centre). Puerto Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureCape TownPuerto Vallarta
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign LanguageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyRand (ZAR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC-6
Emergency number112911
Elevation5 m101 m
Main airportCape Town International Airport (CPT)18 km from centre45 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureCape TownPuerto Vallarta
City population3,776,313224,166
People per km²1,5384,311
Museums within 10 km222
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km31
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cape Town 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). 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. 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.