VacationSelector
Rocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay, Huatulco
HuatulcoRocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay
A cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan, San Juan
San JuanA cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan

Photos: Huatulco by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; San Juan by Mohan Nannapaneni, Pexels License.

Huatulco or San Juan?

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
  • wellness
  • beaches

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

Choose San Juan for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on San Juan’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 Juan 84: Huatulco leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Huatulco 44, San Juan 66: San Juan leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Huatulco 15, San Juan 64: San Juan leads by 49 points.
Nightlife. Huatulco 24, San Juan 70: San Juan leads by 46 points.
Nature & outdoors. Huatulco 76, San Juan 74: Huatulco leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Huatulco 40, San Juan 52: San Juan leads by 12 points.
Good for families. Huatulco 56, San Juan 58: San Juan leads by 2 points.
Getting around. Huatulco 33, San Juan 38: San Juan leads by 5 points.
Shopping & style. Huatulco 20, San Juan 50: San Juan leads by 30 points.
Affordability. Huatulco 62, San Juan 38: Huatulco leads by 24 points.
Live music & performing arts. Huatulco 9, San Juan 55: San Juan leads by 46 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Huatulco 52, San Juan 40: Huatulco leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Huatulco and San Juan.

Your match

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

Huatulco
43match

Wins on prices and wellness with your weighting.

San Juan
Best match
57match

Wins on culture and sights and nightlife 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 Juan in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
HuatulcoSan Juan

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 Juan: 1991-2020 normals, San Juan / Int., Puerto Rico (12.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureHuatulcoSan Juan
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish, English
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-4
Emergency number911911
Elevation220 m3 m
Main airportBahías de Huatulco International Airport (HUX)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsLuis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU)12 km from centre59 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days21 days

By the numbers

MeasureHuatulcoSan Juan
City population7,409342,259
People per km²-2,847
Museums within 10 km018
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

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