VacationSelector
Palms on Waikiki Beach, Honolulu
HonoluluPalms on Waikiki Beach
Rocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay, Huatulco
HuatulcoRocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay

Photos: Honolulu by Jess Loiterton, Pexels License; Huatulco by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Honolulu or Huatulco?

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 Honolulu for

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

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

Choose Huatulco for

  • prices
  • day trips
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Huatulco’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. Honolulu 91, Huatulco 86: Honolulu leads by 5 points.
Food & drink. Honolulu 70, Huatulco 44: Honolulu leads by 26 points.
Culture & sights. Honolulu 55, Huatulco 15: Honolulu leads by 40 points.
Nightlife. Honolulu 45, Huatulco 24: Honolulu leads by 21 points.
Nature & outdoors. Honolulu 88, Huatulco 76: Honolulu leads by 12 points.
Day trips. Honolulu 38, Huatulco 40: Huatulco leads by 2 points.
Good for families. Honolulu 80, Huatulco 56: Honolulu leads by 24 points.
Getting around. Honolulu 52, Huatulco 33: Honolulu leads by 19 points.
Shopping & style. Honolulu 60, Huatulco 20: Honolulu leads by 40 points.
Affordability. Honolulu 15, Huatulco 62: Huatulco leads by 47 points.
Live music & performing arts. Honolulu 40, Huatulco 9: Honolulu leads by 31 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Honolulu 50, Huatulco 52: Huatulco leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Honolulu and Huatulco.

Your match

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

Honolulu
Best match
57match

Wins on culture and sights and shopping with your weighting.

Huatulco
43match

Wins on prices and day trips with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Honolulu in July

31 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
13 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
26 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Huatulco in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
156 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

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
HonoluluHuatulco

Where the figures come from

Huatulco's temperatures are measured 42 km from the centre, at Puerto Angel, Oax..

Huatulco's station stands 177 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Huatulco 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. Honolulu: 1991-2020 normals, Honolulu International Airport (10.1 km from centre). Huatulco: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (42.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureHonoluluHuatulco
Official language-Spanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-10UTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation12 m220 m
Main airportDaniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL)7 km from centre56 non-stop destinationsBahías de Huatulco International Airport (HUX)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureHonoluluHuatulco
City population350,9647,409
People per km²1,981-
Museums within 10 km120
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Honolulu or Huatulco 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.