VacationSelector
The Johannesburg skyline and the Hillbrow Tower, Johannesburg
JohannesburgThe Johannesburg skyline and the Hillbrow Tower
The beach and the bay with the mountains behind, Nuevo Vallarta
Nuevo VallartaThe beach and the bay with the mountains behind

Photos: Johannesburg by K, Pexels License; Nuevo Vallarta by Harpqueen, Public domain.

Johannesburg or Nuevo Vallarta?

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 Johannesburg for

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

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

Choose Nuevo Vallarta for

  • beaches
  • families
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Nuevo Vallarta’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. Johannesburg 5, Nuevo Vallarta 84: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 79 points.
Food & drink. Johannesburg 58, Nuevo Vallarta 40: Johannesburg leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Johannesburg 56, Nuevo Vallarta 6: Johannesburg leads by 50 points.
Nightlife. Johannesburg 62, Nuevo Vallarta 16: Johannesburg leads by 46 points.
Nature & outdoors. Johannesburg 55, Nuevo Vallarta 75: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 20 points.
Day trips. Johannesburg 52, Nuevo Vallarta 58: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 6 points.
Good for families. Johannesburg 42, Nuevo Vallarta 73: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 31 points.
Getting around. Johannesburg 18, Nuevo Vallarta 25: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 7 points.
Shopping & style. Johannesburg 58, Nuevo Vallarta 22: Johannesburg leads by 36 points.
Affordability. Johannesburg 72, Nuevo Vallarta 45: Johannesburg leads by 27 points.
Live music & performing arts. Johannesburg 55, Nuevo Vallarta 18: Johannesburg leads by 37 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Johannesburg 28, Nuevo Vallarta 55: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 27 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Johannesburg and Nuevo Vallarta.

Your match

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

Johannesburg
Best match
47match

Wins on culture and sights and nightlife with your weighting.

Nuevo Vallarta
43match

Wins on beaches 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.

Johannesburg in July

19 °Cdaytime high
4 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
No seasea
11 hdaylight a day

Nuevo Vallarta in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
206 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
JohannesburgNuevo Vallarta

Where the figures come from

Nuevo Vallarta 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. Johannesburg: 2005-2019 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Johannesburg B / Roosevelt Park (7.3 km from centre). Nuevo Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureJohannesburgNuevo Vallarta
Official languageEnglish, Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Venda, Northern Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Sesotho, Southern Ndebele, South African Sign LanguageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyRand (ZAR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCMN230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+2UTC-6
Emergency number112911
Elevation1,753 m3 m
Main airportO.R. Tambo International Airport (JNB)22 km from centre83 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)4 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureJohannesburgNuevo Vallarta
City population4,803,2621,301
People per km²2,922-
Museums within 10 km140
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Johannesburg or Nuevo Vallarta 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. 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.