VacationSelector
Cloud Gate in Millennium Park, Chicago
ChicagoCloud Gate in Millennium Park
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo

Photos: Chicago by Jesus Toledo, Pexels License; Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Chicago 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 Chicago for

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

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

Choose Puerto Escondido for

  • prices
  • beaches
  • 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. Chicago 50, Puerto Escondido 82: Puerto Escondido leads by 32 points.
Food & drink. Chicago 80, Puerto Escondido 48: Chicago leads by 32 points.
Culture & sights. Chicago 78, Puerto Escondido 8: Chicago leads by 70 points.
Nightlife. Chicago 77, Puerto Escondido 45: Chicago leads by 32 points.
Nature & outdoors. Chicago 48, Puerto Escondido 78: Puerto Escondido leads by 30 points.
Day trips. Chicago 42, Puerto Escondido 35: Chicago leads by 7 points.
Good for families. Chicago 78, Puerto Escondido 42: Chicago leads by 36 points.
Getting around. Chicago 72, Puerto Escondido 40: Chicago leads by 32 points.
Shopping & style. Chicago 70, Puerto Escondido 22: Chicago leads by 48 points.
Affordability. Chicago 33, Puerto Escondido 68: Puerto Escondido leads by 35 points.
Live music & performing arts. Chicago 82, Puerto Escondido 12: Chicago leads by 70 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Chicago 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: Chicago and Puerto Escondido.

Your match

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

Chicago
Best match
62match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Puerto Escondido
45match

Wins on prices and beaches with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Chicago in July

29 °Cdaytime high
20 °Cnight-time low
102 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
21 °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
ChicagoPuerto Escondido

Where the figures come from

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. Chicago: 1991-2020 normals, Chicago Midway Airport (14.5 km from centre). Puerto Escondido: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (65.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureChicagoPuerto Escondido
Official language-Spanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6, UTC-5 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation179 m60 m
Main airportChicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)25 km from centre274 non-stop destinationsPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureChicagoPuerto Escondido
City population2,746,38829,903
People per km²4,529-
Museums within 10 km440
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C1 month12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Chicago 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.