VacationSelector
Rocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay, Huatulco
HuatulcoRocks and beach in Tangolunda Bay
The Great Mosque with the mountains behind, Tirana
TiranaThe Great Mosque with the mountains behind

Photos: Huatulco by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Tirana by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Huatulco or Tirana?

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
  • wellness
  • families

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

Choose Tirana for

  • nightlife
  • culture and sights
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Tirana’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, Tirana 46: Huatulco leads by 40 points.
Food & drink. Huatulco 44, Tirana 57: Tirana leads by 13 points.
Culture & sights. Huatulco 15, Tirana 42: Tirana leads by 27 points.
Nightlife. Huatulco 24, Tirana 58: Tirana leads by 34 points.
Nature & outdoors. Huatulco 76, Tirana 62: Huatulco leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Huatulco 40, Tirana 64: Tirana leads by 24 points.
Good for families. Huatulco 56, Tirana 40: Huatulco leads by 16 points.
Getting around. Huatulco 33, Tirana 54: Tirana leads by 21 points.
Shopping & style. Huatulco 20, Tirana 32: Tirana leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Huatulco 62, Tirana 76: Tirana leads by 14 points.
Live music & performing arts. Huatulco 9, Tirana 32: Tirana leads by 23 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Huatulco 52, Tirana 27: Huatulco leads by 25 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Huatulco and Tirana.

Your match

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

Huatulco
43match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

Tirana
Best match
49match

Wins on nightlife 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

Tirana in July

31 °Cdaytime high
17 °Cnight-time low
43 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
24 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
HuatulcoTirana

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). Tirana: 1961-1990 normals, Tirana (3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureHuatulcoTirana
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaAlbanian
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Lek (ALL)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation220 m110 m
Main airportBahías de Huatulco International Airport (HUX)15 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsTirana International Airport Mother Teresa (TIA)13 km from centre121 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasureHuatulcoTirana
City population7,409389,323
People per km²-9,314
Museums within 10 km011
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Huatulco or Tirana 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.