VacationSelector
Comares Tower and the Palace of Charles V, Alhambra, Granada
GranadaComares Tower and the Palace of Charles V, Alhambra
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills

Photos: Granada by Jebulon, CC0; Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Granada 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 Granada for

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

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

Choose Puerto Vallarta for

  • beaches
  • families
  • 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. Granada 38, Puerto Vallarta 85: Puerto Vallarta leads by 47 points.
Food & drink. Granada and Puerto Vallarta are level on 62.
Culture & sights. Granada 80, Puerto Vallarta 28: Granada leads by 52 points.
Nightlife. Granada 58, Puerto Vallarta 66: Puerto Vallarta leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Granada 80, Puerto Vallarta 76: Granada leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Granada 76, Puerto Vallarta 55: Granada leads by 21 points.
Good for families. Granada 52, Puerto Vallarta 65: Puerto Vallarta leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Granada 68, Puerto Vallarta 45: Granada leads by 23 points.
Shopping & style. Granada 40, Puerto Vallarta 42: Puerto Vallarta leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Granada 63, Puerto Vallarta 60: Granada leads by 3 points.
Live music & performing arts. Granada 58, Puerto Vallarta 32: Granada leads by 26 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Granada 48, Puerto Vallarta 52: Puerto Vallarta leads by 4 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Granada and Puerto Vallarta.

Your match

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

Granada
Best match
60match

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

Puerto Vallarta
56match

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.

Granada in July

35 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
13 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 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
GranadaPuerto 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. Granada: 1991-2020 normals, Granada / Caserío Hospicio (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

MeasureGranadaPuerto Vallarta
Official languageSpanishSpanish, 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
Elevation693 m101 m
Main airportF.G.L. Airport Granada-Jaén Airport (GRX)16 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureGranadaPuerto Vallarta
City population233,975224,166
People per km²2,6594,311
Museums within 10 km202
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
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 Granada 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.