VacationSelector
The cathedral and Great St. Martin on the Rhine, Cologne
CologneThe cathedral and Great St. Martin on the Rhine
The beach and the bay with the mountains behind, Nuevo Vallarta
Nuevo VallartaThe beach and the bay with the mountains behind

Photos: Cologne by Jörg Braukmann, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Nuevo Vallarta by Harpqueen, Public domain.

Cologne or Nuevo 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 Cologne for

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

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

Choose Nuevo Vallarta for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Nuevo 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. Cologne 14, Nuevo Vallarta 84: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 70 points.
Food & drink. Cologne 52, Nuevo Vallarta 40: Cologne leads by 12 points.
Culture & sights. Cologne 67, Nuevo Vallarta 6: Cologne leads by 61 points.
Nightlife. Cologne 66, Nuevo Vallarta 16: Cologne leads by 50 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cologne 56, Nuevo Vallarta 75: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 19 points.
Day trips. Cologne 80, Nuevo Vallarta 58: Cologne leads by 22 points.
Good for families. Cologne 70, Nuevo Vallarta 73: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Cologne 74, Nuevo Vallarta 25: Cologne leads by 49 points.
Shopping & style. Cologne 57, Nuevo Vallarta 22: Cologne leads by 35 points.
Affordability. Cologne 46, Nuevo Vallarta 45: Cologne leads by 1 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cologne 68, Nuevo Vallarta 18: Cologne leads by 50 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cologne 50, Nuevo Vallarta 55: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cologne and Nuevo Vallarta.

Your match

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

Cologne
Best match
58match

Wins on culture and sights and nightlife with your weighting.

Nuevo Vallarta
43match

Wins on beaches 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.

Cologne in July

25 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
81 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
16 hdaylight a day

Nuevo Vallarta in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
206 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
CologneNuevo Vallarta

Where the figures come from

Nuevo 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. Cologne: 1991-2020 normals, Köln-Stammheim (5.4 km from centre). Nuevo Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureCologneNuevo Vallarta
Official languageGermanSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number112911
Elevation59 m3 m
Main airportCologne Bonn Airport (CGN)15 km from centre115 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)4 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureCologneNuevo Vallarta
City population1,025,5231,301
People per km²2,532-
Museums within 10 km400
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km31
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cologne or Nuevo 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. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.