VacationSelector
The pastel houses of Rainbow Row, Charleston
CharlestonThe pastel houses of Rainbow Row
Rocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay, Huatulco
HuatulcoRocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay

Photos: Charleston by NealVickers, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Huatulco by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Charleston or Huatulco?

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 Charleston for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Huatulco for

  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Huatulco’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. Charleston 72, Huatulco 86: Huatulco leads by 14 points.
Food & drink. Charleston 72, Huatulco 44: Charleston leads by 28 points.
Culture & sights. Charleston 64, Huatulco 15: Charleston leads by 49 points.
Nightlife. Charleston 44, Huatulco 24: Charleston leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Charleston 55, Huatulco 76: Huatulco leads by 21 points.
Day trips. Charleston 62, Huatulco 40: Charleston leads by 22 points.
Good for families. Charleston 60, Huatulco 56: Charleston leads by 4 points.
Getting around. Charleston 46, Huatulco 33: Charleston leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Charleston 55, Huatulco 20: Charleston leads by 35 points.
Affordability. Charleston 27, Huatulco 62: Huatulco leads by 35 points.
Live music & performing arts. Charleston 42, Huatulco 9: Charleston leads by 33 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Charleston 40, Huatulco 52: Huatulco leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Charleston and Huatulco.

Your match

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

Charleston
Best match
53match

Wins on culture and sights and shopping with your weighting.

Huatulco
43match

Wins on prices 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.

Charleston in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
167 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Huatulco in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
156 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

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
CharlestonHuatulco

Where the figures come from

Huatulco's temperatures are measured 42 km from the centre, at Puerto Angel, Oax..

Huatulco's station stands 177 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Huatulco 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. Charleston: 1991-2020 normals, Charleston Airport (16.1 km from centre). Huatulco: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (42.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCharlestonHuatulco
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
Elevation6 m220 m
Main airportCharleston International Airport (CHS)16 km from centre56 non-stop destinationsBahías de Huatulco International Airport (HUX)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureCharlestonHuatulco
City population150,2277,409
People per km²532-
Museums within 10 km190
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C6 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Charleston or Huatulco 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.