VacationSelector
Rocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay, Huatulco
HuatulcoRocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay
Waterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor, Newport Beach
Newport BeachWaterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor

Photos: Huatulco by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Newport Beach by Don Ramey Logan, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Huatulco or Newport 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
  • getting around

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

Choose Newport Beach for

  • shopping
  • live music and the arts
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Newport 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, Newport Beach 70: Huatulco leads by 16 points.
Food & drink. Huatulco 44, Newport Beach 50: Newport Beach leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Huatulco 15, Newport Beach 20: Newport Beach leads by 5 points.
Nightlife. Huatulco 24, Newport Beach 33: Newport Beach leads by 9 points.
Nature & outdoors. Huatulco 76, Newport Beach 66: Huatulco leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Huatulco 40, Newport Beach 70: Newport Beach leads by 30 points.
Good for families. Huatulco 56, Newport Beach 80: Newport Beach leads by 24 points.
Getting around. Huatulco 33, Newport Beach 20: Huatulco leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Huatulco 20, Newport Beach 62: Newport Beach leads by 42 points.
Affordability. Huatulco 62, Newport Beach 15: Huatulco leads by 47 points.
Live music & performing arts. Huatulco 9, Newport Beach 46: Newport Beach leads by 37 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Huatulco 52, Newport Beach 44: Huatulco leads by 8 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Huatulco and Newport 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.

Newport Beach
Best match
48match

Wins on shopping 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

Newport Beach in July

26 °Cdaytime high
19 °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
HuatulcoNewport 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). Newport Beach: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1981-2010) normals, Santa Ana / Paularino (7.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureHuatulcoNewport 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 m3 m
Main airportBahías de Huatulco International Airport (HUX)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)7 km from centre53 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureHuatulcoNewport Beach
City population7,40985,239
People per km²-622
Museums within 10 km04
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 Newport 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.