VacationSelector
The beach and pier at uShaka, Durban
DurbanThe beach and pier at uShaka
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo

Photos: Durban by Ossewa, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Durban 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 Durban for

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

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

Choose Puerto Escondido for

  • wellness
  • getting around
  • nature and the outdoors

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. Durban 80, Puerto Escondido 82: Puerto Escondido leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Durban 60, Puerto Escondido 48: Durban leads by 12 points.
Culture & sights. Durban 38, Puerto Escondido 8: Durban leads by 30 points.
Nightlife. Durban 40, Puerto Escondido 45: Puerto Escondido leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. Durban 68, Puerto Escondido 78: Puerto Escondido leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Durban 38, Puerto Escondido 35: Durban leads by 3 points.
Good for families. Durban 60, Puerto Escondido 42: Durban leads by 18 points.
Getting around. Durban 20, Puerto Escondido 40: Puerto Escondido leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Durban 42, Puerto Escondido 22: Durban leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Durban 72, Puerto Escondido 68: Durban leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. Durban 40, Puerto Escondido 12: Durban leads by 28 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Durban 30, Puerto Escondido 58: Puerto Escondido leads by 28 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Durban and Puerto Escondido.

Your match

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

Durban
Best match
49match

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

Puerto Escondido
45match

Wins on wellness and getting around with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Durban in July

23 °Cdaytime high
11 °Cnight-time low
44 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
22 °Csea
10 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
DurbanPuerto Escondido

Where the figures come from

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. Durban: 1991-2020 normals, Durban, Durban International Airport (14.1 km from centre). Puerto Escondido: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (65.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureDurbanPuerto Escondido
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign LanguageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyRand (ZAR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC-6
Emergency number112911
Elevation22 m60 m
Main airportKing Shaka International Airport (DUR)29 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureDurbanPuerto Escondido
City population595,06129,903
People per km²2,634-
Museums within 10 km10
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Durban 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. 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. 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.