VacationSelector
A dhow below the towers of West Bay, Doha
DohaA dhow below the towers of West Bay
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills

Photos: Doha by Gregory Hawken Kramer, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Doha 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 Doha for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping

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

Choose Puerto Vallarta for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • day trips
  • nightlife

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. Doha 45, Puerto Vallarta 85: Puerto Vallarta leads by 40 points.
Food & drink. Doha 55, Puerto Vallarta 62: Puerto Vallarta leads by 7 points.
Culture & sights. Doha 55, Puerto Vallarta 28: Doha leads by 27 points.
Nightlife. Doha 20, Puerto Vallarta 66: Puerto Vallarta leads by 46 points.
Nature & outdoors. Doha 7, Puerto Vallarta 76: Puerto Vallarta leads by 69 points.
Day trips. Doha 5, Puerto Vallarta 55: Puerto Vallarta leads by 50 points.
Good for families. Doha 60, Puerto Vallarta 65: Puerto Vallarta leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Doha and Puerto Vallarta are level on 45.
Shopping & style. Doha 60, Puerto Vallarta 42: Doha leads by 18 points.
Affordability. Doha 38, Puerto Vallarta 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. Doha 30, Puerto Vallarta 32: Puerto Vallarta leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Doha 38, Puerto Vallarta 52: Puerto Vallarta leads by 14 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Doha and Puerto Vallarta.

Your match

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

Doha
38match

Wins on culture and sights and shopping with your weighting.

Puerto Vallarta
Best match
56match

Wins on nature and the outdoors and day trips with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Doha in July

43 °Cdaytime high
33 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
33 °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°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
DohaPuerto 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. Doha: 1991-2020 normals, Doha International Airport (5.5 km from centre). Puerto Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureDohaPuerto Vallarta
Official languageArabicSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyQatari Rial (QAR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsG240 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+3UTC-6
Emergency number999911
Elevation0 m101 m
Main airportHamad International Airport (DOH)8 km from centre195 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-9 days

By the numbers

MeasureDohaPuerto Vallarta
City population1,186,023224,166
People per km²8,9854,311
Museums within 10 km62
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C9 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Doha 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). 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. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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.