VacationSelector
The twin towers of the cathedral over Plaza de Armas, Guadalajara
GuadalajaraThe twin towers of the cathedral over Plaza de Armas
The Sanctuary of Truth by the sea, Pattaya
PattayaThe Sanctuary of Truth by the sea

Photos: Guadalajara by Ponchomx, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Pattaya by Matrix, Pexels License.

Guadalajara or Pattaya?

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 Guadalajara for

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

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

Choose Pattaya for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Pattaya’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. Guadalajara 5, Pattaya 66: Pattaya leads by 61 points.
Food & drink. Guadalajara 75, Pattaya 58: Guadalajara leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Guadalajara 62, Pattaya 30: Guadalajara leads by 32 points.
Nightlife. Guadalajara 68, Pattaya 76: Pattaya leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Guadalajara 55, Pattaya 40: Guadalajara leads by 15 points.
Day trips. Guadalajara 66, Pattaya 52: Guadalajara leads by 14 points.
Good for families. Guadalajara and Pattaya are level on 55.
Getting around. Guadalajara 40, Pattaya 36: Guadalajara leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Guadalajara 60, Pattaya 42: Guadalajara leads by 18 points.
Affordability. Guadalajara 78, Pattaya 84: Pattaya leads by 6 points.
Live music & performing arts. Guadalajara 60, Pattaya 30: Guadalajara leads by 30 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Guadalajara 35, Pattaya 58: Pattaya leads by 23 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Guadalajara and Pattaya.

Your match

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

Guadalajara
Best match
55match

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

Pattaya
52match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Guadalajara in July

25 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
205 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
13 hdaylight a day

Pattaya in July

32 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
102 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
GuadalajaraPattaya

Where the figures come from

Guadalajara 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.

Pattaya's temperatures are measured 31 km from the centre, at Sattahip.

Pattaya 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.

Pattaya's sunshine is measured 86 km from the centre, at Bangna Agromet / Ban Khlong Samrong.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Guadalajara: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Pattaya: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1961-1990, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Sattahip (31.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureGuadalajaraPattaya
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaThai
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Baht (THB)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzABCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+7
Emergency number911Police 191, ambulance 1669, fire 199
Elevation1,536 m35 m
Main airportGuadalajara International Airport (GDL)17 km from centre68 non-stop destinationsSuvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)83 km from centre150 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days-

By the numbers

MeasureGuadalajaraPattaya
City population1,385,621119,532
People per km²9,556-
Museums within 10 km170
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 Guadalajara or Pattaya somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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). 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.