VacationSelector
Rocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay, Huatulco
HuatulcoRocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay
A cable car over the brick-red houses, La Paz
La PazA cable car over the brick-red houses

Photos: Huatulco by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; La Paz by Arabsalam, CC BY 4.0, cropped.

Huatulco or La Paz?

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 Huatulco for

  • beaches
  • families
  • wellness

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

Choose La Paz for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on La Paz’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. Huatulco 86, La Paz 3: Huatulco leads by 83 points.
Food & drink. Huatulco 44, La Paz 50: La Paz leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Huatulco 15, La Paz 52: La Paz leads by 37 points.
Nightlife. Huatulco 24, La Paz 38: La Paz leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. Huatulco 76, La Paz 82: La Paz leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Huatulco and La Paz are level on 40.
Good for families. Huatulco 56, La Paz 10: Huatulco leads by 46 points.
Getting around. Huatulco 33, La Paz 45: La Paz leads by 12 points.
Shopping & style. Huatulco 20, La Paz 45: La Paz leads by 25 points.
Affordability. Huatulco 62, La Paz 92: La Paz leads by 30 points.
Live music & performing arts. Huatulco 9, La Paz 35: La Paz leads by 26 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Huatulco 52, La Paz 12: Huatulco leads by 40 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Huatulco and La Paz.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Huatulco
43match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

La Paz
42match

Wins on culture and sights 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.

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

La Paz in July

13 °Cdaytime high
-2 °Cnight-time low
16 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
11 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
HuatulcoLa Paz

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.

La Paz 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. Huatulco: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (42.2 km from centre). La Paz: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureHuatulcoLa Paz
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish, Aymara, Quechua, Guarani
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Boliviano (BOB)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAC50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-4
Emergency number911911
Elevation220 m3,640 m
Main airportBahías de Huatulco International Airport (HUX)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsEl Alto International Airport (LPB)6 km from centre12 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureHuatulcoLa Paz
City population7,409755,732
People per km²-1,601
Museums within 10 km021
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Huatulco or La Paz 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.