VacationSelector
Rocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay, Huatulco
HuatulcoRocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay
White sand and turquoise water at Pensacola Beach, Pensacola
PensacolaWhite sand and turquoise water at Pensacola Beach

Photos: Huatulco by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Pensacola by Jason Meredith, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Huatulco or Pensacola?

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

  • wellness
  • prices
  • getting around

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

Choose Pensacola for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Pensacola’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, Pensacola 84: Huatulco leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Huatulco 44, Pensacola 45: Pensacola leads by 1 points.
Culture & sights. Huatulco 15, Pensacola 45: Pensacola leads by 30 points.
Nightlife. Huatulco 24, Pensacola 42: Pensacola leads by 18 points.
Nature & outdoors. Huatulco 76, Pensacola 62: Huatulco leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Huatulco 40, Pensacola 45: Pensacola leads by 5 points.
Good for families. Huatulco 56, Pensacola 62: Pensacola leads by 6 points.
Getting around. Huatulco 33, Pensacola 18: Huatulco leads by 15 points.
Shopping & style. Huatulco 20, Pensacola 28: Pensacola leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Huatulco 62, Pensacola 44: Huatulco leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. Huatulco 9, Pensacola 36: Pensacola leads by 27 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Huatulco 52, Pensacola 30: Huatulco leads by 22 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Huatulco and Pensacola.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Huatulco
43match

Wins on wellness and prices with your weighting.

Pensacola
45match

Wins on culture and sights 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

Pensacola in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
200 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
HuatulcoPensacola

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). Pensacola: 1991-2020 normals, Pensacola / Pleasant Grove (12.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureHuatulcoPensacola
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya-
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-6, UTC-5 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation220 m31 m
Main airportBahías de Huatulco International Airport (HUX)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsPensacola International Airport (PNS)6 km from centre27 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasureHuatulcoPensacola
City population7,40954,312
People per km²-515
Museums within 10 km05
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months7 months

Where else could you go?

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