VacationSelector
The pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto
KyotoThe pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills

Photos: Kyoto by Bert Mulder, Pexels License; Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Kyoto 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 Kyoto for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • shopping

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

Choose Puerto Vallarta for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • prices

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. Kyoto 15, Puerto Vallarta 85: Puerto Vallarta leads by 70 points.
Food & drink. Kyoto 85, Puerto Vallarta 62: Kyoto leads by 23 points.
Culture & sights. Kyoto 96, Puerto Vallarta 28: Kyoto leads by 68 points.
Nightlife. Kyoto 35, Puerto Vallarta 66: Puerto Vallarta leads by 31 points.
Nature & outdoors. Kyoto 70, Puerto Vallarta 76: Puerto Vallarta leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Kyoto 96, Puerto Vallarta 55: Kyoto leads by 41 points.
Good for families. Kyoto 68, Puerto Vallarta 65: Kyoto leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Kyoto 72, Puerto Vallarta 45: Kyoto leads by 27 points.
Shopping & style. Kyoto 72, Puerto Vallarta 42: Kyoto leads by 30 points.
Affordability. Kyoto 50, Puerto Vallarta 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. Kyoto 60, Puerto Vallarta 32: Kyoto leads by 28 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Kyoto 70, Puerto Vallarta 52: Kyoto leads by 18 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Kyoto and Puerto Vallarta.

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 Vallarta
56match

Wins on beaches and nightlife 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 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
KyotoPuerto Vallarta

Where the figures come from

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

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. Kyoto: 1971-2000 (sunshine 1991-2020) normals, Kyoto (3.2 km from centre). Puerto Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureKyotoPuerto Vallarta
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 m101 m
Main airportKansai International Airport (KIX)81 km from centre62 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year16 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureKyotoPuerto Vallarta
City population1,463,723224,166
People per km²1,7684,311
Museums within 10 km772
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km41
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 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). 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. 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.