VacationSelector
The clock tower in the old town, Kotor
KotorThe clock tower in the old town
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills

Photos: Kotor by Muhammed Fatih Beki, Pexels License; Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Kotor or Puerto 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 Kotor for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Puerto Vallarta for

  • nightlife
  • families
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Puerto 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. Kotor 57, Puerto Vallarta 85: Puerto Vallarta leads by 28 points.
Food & drink. Kotor 37, Puerto Vallarta 62: Puerto Vallarta leads by 25 points.
Culture & sights. Kotor 55, Puerto Vallarta 28: Kotor leads by 27 points.
Nightlife. Kotor 30, Puerto Vallarta 66: Puerto Vallarta leads by 36 points.
Nature & outdoors. Kotor 80, Puerto Vallarta 76: Kotor leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Kotor 72, Puerto Vallarta 55: Kotor leads by 17 points.
Good for families. Kotor 36, Puerto Vallarta 65: Puerto Vallarta leads by 29 points.
Getting around. Kotor 48, Puerto Vallarta 45: Kotor leads by 3 points.
Shopping & style. Kotor 20, Puerto Vallarta 42: Puerto Vallarta leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Kotor 57, Puerto Vallarta 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 3 points.
Live music & performing arts. Kotor 20, Puerto Vallarta 32: Puerto Vallarta leads by 12 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Kotor 24, Puerto Vallarta 52: Puerto Vallarta leads by 28 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Kotor and Puerto Vallarta.

Your match

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

Kotor
45match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips with your weighting.

Puerto Vallarta
Best match
56match

Wins on nightlife 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.

Kotor in July

31 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
39 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Puerto Vallarta in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
209 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
KotorPuerto Vallarta

Where the figures come from

Kotor 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.

Kotor's sunshine is measured 42 km from the centre, at Podgorica-Grad.

Puerto 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. Kotor: 1991-2020 normals, Tivat (4.2 km from centre). Puerto Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureKotorPuerto Vallarta
Official languageMontenegrinSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number112911
Elevation10 m101 m
Main airportTivat Airport (TIV)5 km from centre42 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-9 days

By the numbers

MeasureKotorPuerto Vallarta
City population562224,166
People per km²-4,311
Museums within 10 km32
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km31
Swim season, months above 21 °C5 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Kotor or Puerto Vallarta somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national 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). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.