VacationSelector
Cocoa Beach Pier behind yellow parasols, Cocoa Beach
Cocoa BeachCocoa Beach Pier behind yellow parasols
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills

Photos: Cocoa Beach by Benoît Prieur, CC0; Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cocoa Beach 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 Cocoa Beach for

  • families

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

Choose Puerto Vallarta for

  • nightlife
  • food and drink
  • getting around

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. Cocoa Beach 80, Puerto Vallarta 85: Puerto Vallarta leads by 5 points.
Food & drink. Cocoa Beach 32, Puerto Vallarta 62: Puerto Vallarta leads by 30 points.
Culture & sights. Cocoa Beach 12, Puerto Vallarta 28: Puerto Vallarta leads by 16 points.
Nightlife. Cocoa Beach 27, Puerto Vallarta 66: Puerto Vallarta leads by 39 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cocoa Beach 62, Puerto Vallarta 76: Puerto Vallarta leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Cocoa Beach 52, Puerto Vallarta 55: Puerto Vallarta leads by 3 points.
Good for families. Cocoa Beach 72, Puerto Vallarta 65: Cocoa Beach leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Cocoa Beach 22, Puerto Vallarta 45: Puerto Vallarta leads by 23 points.
Shopping & style. Cocoa Beach 20, Puerto Vallarta 42: Puerto Vallarta leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Cocoa Beach 40, Puerto Vallarta 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 20 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cocoa Beach 14, Puerto Vallarta 32: Puerto Vallarta leads by 18 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cocoa Beach 30, Puerto Vallarta 52: Puerto Vallarta leads by 22 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cocoa Beach and Puerto Vallarta.

Your match

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

Cocoa Beach
39match

Wins on families with your weighting.

Puerto Vallarta
Best match
56match

Wins on nightlife and food and drink with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Cocoa Beach in July

30 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
147 mmrain in the month
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Puerto Vallarta in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
209 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Cocoa BeachPuerto Vallarta

Where the figures come from

Cocoa Beach 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.

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. Cocoa Beach: 1961-1990 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Cocoa / Patrick Air Force Base (11.2 km from centre). Puerto Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureCocoa BeachPuerto Vallarta
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
Elevation0 m101 m
Main airportOrlando International Airport (MCO)68 km from centre170 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureCocoa BeachPuerto Vallarta
City population11,354224,166
People per km²2904,311
Museums within 10 km32
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C11 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cocoa Beach 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.