VacationSelector
Rocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay, Huatulco
HuatulcoRocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay
The old Bath House in the Government Gardens, Rotorua
RotoruaThe old Bath House in the Government Gardens

Photos: Huatulco by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Rotorua by W. Bulach, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Huatulco or Rotorua?

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
  • prices
  • food and drink

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

Choose Rotorua for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Rotorua’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, Rotorua 33: Huatulco leads by 53 points.
Food & drink. Huatulco 44, Rotorua 33: Huatulco leads by 11 points.
Culture & sights. Huatulco 15, Rotorua 38: Rotorua leads by 23 points.
Nightlife. Huatulco 24, Rotorua 14: Huatulco leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Huatulco 76, Rotorua 86: Rotorua leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Huatulco 40, Rotorua 45: Rotorua leads by 5 points.
Good for families. Huatulco 56, Rotorua 68: Rotorua leads by 12 points.
Getting around. Huatulco 33, Rotorua 30: Huatulco leads by 3 points.
Shopping & style. Huatulco 20, Rotorua 22: Rotorua leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Huatulco 62, Rotorua 36: Huatulco leads by 26 points.
Live music & performing arts. Huatulco 9, Rotorua 30: Rotorua leads by 21 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Huatulco 52, Rotorua 86: Rotorua leads by 34 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Huatulco and Rotorua.

Your match

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

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Huatulco
43match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Rotorua
43match

Wins on wellness and culture and sights 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

Rotorua in July

11 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
113 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
15 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
HuatulcoRotorua

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.

Rotorua 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). Rotorua: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureHuatulcoRotorua
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaEnglish, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency number911111
Elevation220 m280 m
Main airportBahías de Huatulco International Airport (HUX)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsRotorua Regional Airport (ROT)7 km from centre3 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureHuatulcoRotorua
City population7,40958,500
People per km²-22
Museums within 10 km01
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 Rotorua 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.