VacationSelector
The cathedral and Great St. Martin on the Rhine, Cologne
CologneThe cathedral and Great St. Martin on the Rhine
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills

Photos: Cologne by Jörg Braukmann, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cologne 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 Cologne for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • getting around

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

Choose Puerto Vallarta for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • prices

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. Cologne 14, Puerto Vallarta 85: Puerto Vallarta leads by 71 points.
Food & drink. Cologne 52, Puerto Vallarta 62: Puerto Vallarta leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Cologne 67, Puerto Vallarta 28: Cologne leads by 39 points.
Nightlife. Cologne and Puerto Vallarta are level on 66.
Nature & outdoors. Cologne 56, Puerto Vallarta 76: Puerto Vallarta leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Cologne 80, Puerto Vallarta 55: Cologne leads by 25 points.
Good for families. Cologne 70, Puerto Vallarta 65: Cologne leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Cologne 74, Puerto Vallarta 45: Cologne leads by 29 points.
Shopping & style. Cologne 57, Puerto Vallarta 42: Cologne leads by 15 points.
Affordability. Cologne 46, Puerto Vallarta 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 14 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cologne 68, Puerto Vallarta 32: Cologne leads by 36 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cologne 50, Puerto Vallarta 52: Puerto Vallarta leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cologne and Puerto Vallarta.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Cologne
58match

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

Puerto Vallarta
56match

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

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

Before you go

MeasureColognePuerto 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 m101 m
Main airportCologne Bonn Airport (CGN)15 km from centre115 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureColognePuerto Vallarta
City population1,025,523224,166
People per km²2,5324,311
Museums within 10 km402
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 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. 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. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.