VacationSelector
The Plaza de Armas with the cathedral and La Compañía, Cusco
CuscoThe Plaza de Armas with the cathedral and La Compañía
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo

Photos: Cusco by Pedro Szekely, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Cusco 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 Cusco for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • shopping

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

Choose Puerto Escondido for

  • beaches
  • families
  • wellness

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. Cusco 3, Puerto Escondido 82: Puerto Escondido leads by 79 points.
Food & drink. Cusco 56, Puerto Escondido 48: Cusco leads by 8 points.
Culture & sights. Cusco 81, Puerto Escondido 8: Cusco leads by 73 points.
Nightlife. Cusco 42, Puerto Escondido 45: Puerto Escondido leads by 3 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cusco 86, Puerto Escondido 78: Cusco leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Cusco 78, Puerto Escondido 35: Cusco leads by 43 points.
Good for families. Cusco 10, Puerto Escondido 42: Puerto Escondido leads by 32 points.
Getting around. Cusco 48, Puerto Escondido 40: Cusco leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Cusco 52, Puerto Escondido 22: Cusco leads by 30 points.
Affordability. Cusco 73, Puerto Escondido 68: Cusco leads by 5 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cusco 30, Puerto Escondido 12: Cusco leads by 18 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cusco 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: Cusco and Puerto Escondido.

Your match

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

Cusco
Best match
49match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips with your weighting.

Puerto Escondido
45match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Cusco in July

20 °Cdaytime high
1 °Cnight-time low
5 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
11 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
CuscoPuerto Escondido

Where the figures come from

Cusco's station stands 151 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

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. Cusco: 1991-2020 normals, Cuzco (3.7 km from centre). Puerto Escondido: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (65.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCuscoPuerto Escondido
Official languageSpanish, Aymara, QuechuaSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencySol (PEN)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsABC220 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-6
Emergency number111 or 911911
Elevation3,399 m60 m
Main airportAlejandro Velasco Astete International Airport (CUZ)5 km from centre6 non-stop destinationsPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureCuscoPuerto Escondido
City population428,45029,903
Museums within 10 km110
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
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 Cusco 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. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). 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. 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.