VacationSelector
Huntington Beach Pier on a summer day, Huntington Beach
Huntington BeachHuntington Beach Pier on a summer day
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo

Photos: Huntington Beach by Stephen Leonardi, Pexels License; Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Huntington Beach or Puerto Escondido?

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 Huntington Beach for

  • families
  • day trips
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Puerto Escondido for

  • prices
  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Puerto Escondido’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. Huntington Beach 70, Puerto Escondido 82: Puerto Escondido leads by 12 points.
Food & drink. Huntington Beach 46, Puerto Escondido 48: Puerto Escondido leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Huntington Beach 14, Puerto Escondido 8: Huntington Beach leads by 6 points.
Nightlife. Huntington Beach 38, Puerto Escondido 45: Puerto Escondido leads by 7 points.
Nature & outdoors. Huntington Beach 58, Puerto Escondido 78: Puerto Escondido leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Huntington Beach 63, Puerto Escondido 35: Huntington Beach leads by 28 points.
Good for families. Huntington Beach 82, Puerto Escondido 42: Huntington Beach leads by 40 points.
Getting around. Huntington Beach 20, Puerto Escondido 40: Puerto Escondido leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Huntington Beach 42, Puerto Escondido 22: Huntington Beach leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Huntington Beach 28, Puerto Escondido 68: Puerto Escondido leads by 40 points.
Live music & performing arts. Huntington Beach 33, Puerto Escondido 12: Huntington Beach leads by 21 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Huntington Beach 36, Puerto Escondido 58: Puerto Escondido leads by 22 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Huntington Beach and Puerto Escondido.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Huntington Beach
44match

Wins on families and day trips with your weighting.

Puerto Escondido
45match

Wins on prices and wellness with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Huntington Beach in July

26 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Puerto Escondido in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
116 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Huntington BeachPuerto Escondido

Where the figures come from

Puerto Escondido's temperatures are measured 66 km from the centre, at Puerto Angel, Oax..

Puerto Escondido 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. Huntington Beach: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Ana / Paularino (12.3 km from centre). Puerto Escondido: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (65.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureHuntington BeachPuerto Escondido
Official language-Spanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation12 m60 m
Main airportJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)12 km from centre53 non-stop destinationsPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureHuntington BeachPuerto Escondido
City population198,71129,903
People per km²2,406-
Museums within 10 km30
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Huntington Beach or Puerto Escondido 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.