VacationSelector
The Johannesburg skyline and the Hillbrow Tower, Johannesburg
JohannesburgThe Johannesburg skyline and the Hillbrow Tower
The main beach with the green hills behind, Sayulita
SayulitaThe main beach with the green hills behind

Photos: Johannesburg by K, Pexels License; Sayulita by Luisalvaz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Johannesburg or Sayulita?

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
  • live music and the arts
  • nightlife

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

Choose Sayulita for

  • beaches
  • getting around
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Sayulita’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, Sayulita 80: Sayulita leads by 75 points.
Food & drink. Johannesburg 58, Sayulita 42: Johannesburg leads by 16 points.
Culture & sights. Johannesburg 56, Sayulita 7: Johannesburg leads by 49 points.
Nightlife. Johannesburg 62, Sayulita 33: Johannesburg leads by 29 points.
Nature & outdoors. Johannesburg 55, Sayulita 72: Sayulita leads by 17 points.
Day trips. Johannesburg 52, Sayulita 42: Johannesburg leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Johannesburg and Sayulita are level on 42.
Getting around. Johannesburg 18, Sayulita 48: Sayulita leads by 30 points.
Shopping & style. Johannesburg 58, Sayulita 33: Johannesburg leads by 25 points.
Affordability. Johannesburg 72, Sayulita 45: Johannesburg leads by 27 points.
Live music & performing arts. Johannesburg 55, Sayulita 12: Johannesburg leads by 43 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Johannesburg 28, Sayulita 58: Sayulita leads by 30 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Johannesburg and Sayulita.

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 live music and the arts with your weighting.

Sayulita
43match

Wins on beaches and getting around 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

Sayulita in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
342 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
JohannesburgSayulita

Where the figures come from

Sayulita 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). Sayulita: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureJohannesburgSayulita
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 m2 m
Main airportO.R. Tambo International Airport (JNB)22 km from centre83 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)29 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureJohannesburgSayulita
City population4,803,2623,390
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 Sayulita 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. 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.