VacationSelector
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo

Photos: Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License; Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Kyoto 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 Kyoto for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • shopping

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

Choose Puerto Escondido for

  • beaches
  • prices
  • nightlife

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. Kyoto 15, Puerto Escondido 82: Puerto Escondido leads by 67 points.
Food & drink. Kyoto 85, Puerto Escondido 48: Kyoto leads by 37 points.
Culture & sights. Kyoto 96, Puerto Escondido 8: Kyoto leads by 88 points.
Nightlife. Kyoto 35, Puerto Escondido 45: Puerto Escondido leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Kyoto 70, Puerto Escondido 78: Puerto Escondido leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Kyoto 96, Puerto Escondido 35: Kyoto leads by 61 points.
Good for families. Kyoto 68, Puerto Escondido 42: Kyoto leads by 26 points.
Getting around. Kyoto 72, Puerto Escondido 40: Kyoto leads by 32 points.
Shopping & style. Kyoto 72, Puerto Escondido 22: Kyoto leads by 50 points.
Affordability. Kyoto 50, Puerto Escondido 68: Puerto Escondido leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. Kyoto 60, Puerto Escondido 12: Kyoto leads by 48 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Kyoto 70, Puerto Escondido 58: Kyoto leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Kyoto and Puerto Escondido.

Your match

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

Kyoto
Best match
66match

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

Puerto Escondido
45match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Kyoto in July

31 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
225 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
25 °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
KyotoPuerto Escondido

Where the figures come from

Kyoto's sunshine is measured 43 km from the centre, at Osaka.

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. Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 km from centre). Puerto Escondido: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (65.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureKyotoPuerto Escondido
Official languageJapaneseSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyYen (JPY)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB100 V, 50 and 60 Hz depending on the regionAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+9UTC-6
Emergency numberPolice 110, fire 119911
Elevation51 m60 m
Main airportKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinationsPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureKyotoPuerto Escondido
City population1,463,72329,903
People per km²1,768-
Museums within 10 km770
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km40
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 Kyoto or Puerto Escondido 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). 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.