VacationSelector
The twin towers of the cathedral over Plaza de Armas, Guadalajara
GuadalajaraThe twin towers of the cathedral over Plaza de Armas
A cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan, San Juan
San JuanA cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan

Photos: Guadalajara by Ponchomx, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; San Juan by Mohan Nannapaneni, Pexels License.

Guadalajara or San Juan?

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

  • prices
  • day trips
  • shopping

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

Choose San Juan for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on San Juan’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, San Juan 84: San Juan leads by 79 points.
Food & drink. Guadalajara 75, San Juan 66: Guadalajara leads by 9 points.
Culture & sights. Guadalajara 62, San Juan 64: San Juan leads by 2 points.
Nightlife. Guadalajara 68, San Juan 70: San Juan leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Guadalajara 55, San Juan 74: San Juan leads by 19 points.
Day trips. Guadalajara 66, San Juan 52: Guadalajara leads by 14 points.
Good for families. Guadalajara 55, San Juan 58: San Juan leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Guadalajara 40, San Juan 38: Guadalajara leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Guadalajara 60, San Juan 50: Guadalajara leads by 10 points.
Affordability. Guadalajara 78, San Juan 38: Guadalajara leads by 40 points.
Live music & performing arts. Guadalajara 60, San Juan 55: Guadalajara leads by 5 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Guadalajara 35, San Juan 40: San Juan leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Guadalajara and San Juan.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Guadalajara
55match

Wins on prices and day trips with your weighting.

San Juan
57match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors 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

San Juan in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
GuadalajaraSan Juan

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.

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. San Juan: 1991-2020 normals, San Juan / Int., Puerto Rico (12.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureGuadalajaraSan Juan
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish, English
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-4
Emergency number911911
Elevation1,536 m3 m
Main airportGuadalajara International Airport (GDL)17 km from centre70 non-stop destinationsLuis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU)12 km from centre59 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days21 days

By the numbers

MeasureGuadalajaraSan Juan
City population1,385,621342,259
People per km²9,5562,847
Museums within 10 km1718
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
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 San Juan 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. 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.