VacationSelector
Rocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay, Huatulco
HuatulcoRocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay
The Botanical Building, Balboa Park, San Diego
San DiegoThe Botanical Building, Balboa Park

Photos: Huatulco by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; San Diego by Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Huatulco or San Diego?

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
  • wellness

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

Choose San Diego for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on San Diego’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, San Diego 72: Huatulco leads by 14 points.
Food & drink. Huatulco 44, San Diego 62: San Diego leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Huatulco 15, San Diego 50: San Diego leads by 35 points.
Nightlife. Huatulco 24, San Diego 48: San Diego leads by 24 points.
Nature & outdoors. Huatulco 76, San Diego 77: San Diego leads by 1 points.
Day trips. Huatulco 40, San Diego 60: San Diego leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Huatulco 56, San Diego 96: San Diego leads by 40 points.
Getting around. Huatulco 33, San Diego 38: San Diego leads by 5 points.
Shopping & style. Huatulco 20, San Diego 44: San Diego leads by 24 points.
Affordability. Huatulco 62, San Diego 26: Huatulco leads by 36 points.
Live music & performing arts. Huatulco 9, San Diego 56: San Diego leads by 47 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Huatulco 52, San Diego 45: Huatulco leads by 7 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Huatulco and San Diego.

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.

San Diego
Best match
56match

Wins on live music and the arts and families 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

San Diego in July

24 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
2 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
HuatulcoSan Diego

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). San Diego: 1991-2020 normals, San Diego International Airport (2.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureHuatulcoSan Diego
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 m129 m
Main airportBahías de Huatulco International Airport (HUX)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsSan Diego International Airport (SAN)3 km from centre87 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureHuatulcoSan Diego
City population7,4091,386,932
People per km²-1,438
Museums within 10 km026
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months1 month

Where else could you go?

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