VacationSelector
Rocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay, Huatulco
HuatulcoRocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay
Main Beach with its palms and lifeguard tower, Laguna Beach
Laguna BeachMain Beach with its palms and lifeguard tower

Photos: Huatulco by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Laguna Beach by Mark Stebnicki, Pexels License.

Huatulco or Laguna Beach?

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

  • prices
  • beaches
  • nightlife

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

Choose Laguna Beach for

  • day trips
  • live music and the arts
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Laguna Beach’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, Laguna Beach 72: Huatulco leads by 14 points.
Food & drink. Huatulco 44, Laguna Beach 40: Huatulco leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Huatulco 15, Laguna Beach 27: Laguna Beach leads by 12 points.
Nightlife. Huatulco 24, Laguna Beach 18: Huatulco leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Huatulco 76, Laguna Beach 73: Huatulco leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Huatulco 40, Laguna Beach 72: Laguna Beach leads by 32 points.
Good for families. Huatulco 56, Laguna Beach 68: Laguna Beach leads by 12 points.
Getting around. Huatulco and Laguna Beach are level on 33.
Shopping & style. Huatulco 20, Laguna Beach 46: Laguna Beach leads by 26 points.
Affordability. Huatulco 62, Laguna Beach 12: Huatulco leads by 50 points.
Live music & performing arts. Huatulco 9, Laguna Beach 40: Laguna Beach leads by 31 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Huatulco 52, Laguna Beach 47: Huatulco leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Huatulco and Laguna Beach.

Your match

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

Huatulco
43match

Wins on prices and beaches with your weighting.

Laguna Beach
Best match
46match

Wins on day trips and live music and the arts 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

Laguna Beach in July

28 °Cdaytime high
17 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
HuatulcoLaguna Beach

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. Huatulco: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (42.2 km from centre). Laguna Beach: 1981-2010 normals, Irvine (15.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureHuatulcoLaguna Beach
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya-
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation220 m6 m
Main airportBahías de Huatulco International Airport (HUX)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)18 km from centre53 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureHuatulcoLaguna Beach
City population7,40923,032
People per km²-907
Museums within 10 km02
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Huatulco or Laguna Beach 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.