VacationSelector
Florence and the Arno, Florence
FlorenceFlorence and the Arno
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills

Photos: Florence by Wolfgang Weiser, Pexels License; Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Florence 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 Florence for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • getting around

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

Choose Puerto Vallarta for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • 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. Florence 14, Puerto Vallarta 85: Puerto Vallarta leads by 71 points.
Food & drink. Florence 74, Puerto Vallarta 62: Florence leads by 12 points.
Culture & sights. Florence 94, Puerto Vallarta 28: Florence leads by 66 points.
Nightlife. Florence 42, Puerto Vallarta 66: Puerto Vallarta leads by 24 points.
Nature & outdoors. Florence 58, Puerto Vallarta 76: Puerto Vallarta leads by 18 points.
Day trips. Florence 98, Puerto Vallarta 55: Florence leads by 43 points.
Good for families. Florence 45, Puerto Vallarta 65: Puerto Vallarta leads by 20 points.
Getting around. Florence 78, Puerto Vallarta 45: Florence leads by 33 points.
Shopping & style. Florence 72, Puerto Vallarta 42: Florence leads by 30 points.
Affordability. Florence 35, Puerto Vallarta 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 25 points.
Live music & performing arts. Florence 58, Puerto Vallarta 32: Florence leads by 26 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Florence 42, Puerto Vallarta 52: Puerto Vallarta leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Florence and Puerto Vallarta.

Your match

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

Florence
Best match
59match

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

Puerto Vallarta
56match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Florence in July

32 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
37 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 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
FlorencePuerto Vallarta

Where the figures come from

Florence 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.

Florence's sunshine is measured 71 km from the centre, at Pisa / S. Giusto.

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. Florence: 1995-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Firenze / Peretola (5.6 km from centre). Puerto Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureFlorencePuerto Vallarta
Official languageItalianSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCFL230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number112911
Elevation50 m101 m
Main airportFlorence Airport, Peretola (FLR)6 km from centre46 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureFlorencePuerto Vallarta
City population360,930224,166
People per km²3,5284,311
Museums within 10 km1412
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km41
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 Florence 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.