VacationSelector
A cable car over the brick-red houses, La Paz
La PazA cable car over the brick-red houses
The Fortaleza San Felipe, Puerto Plata
Puerto PlataThe Fortaleza San Felipe

Photos: La Paz by Arabsalam, CC BY 4.0, cropped; Puerto Plata by CareAhLine, CC0.

La Paz or Puerto Plata?

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 La Paz for

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

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

Choose Puerto Plata for

  • beaches
  • families
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Puerto Plata’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. La Paz 3, Puerto Plata 80: Puerto Plata leads by 77 points.
Food & drink. La Paz 50, Puerto Plata 40: La Paz leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. La Paz 52, Puerto Plata 35: La Paz leads by 17 points.
Nightlife. La Paz and Puerto Plata are level on 38.
Nature & outdoors. La Paz 82, Puerto Plata 68: La Paz leads by 14 points.
Day trips. La Paz 40, Puerto Plata 48: Puerto Plata leads by 8 points.
Good for families. La Paz 10, Puerto Plata 57: Puerto Plata leads by 47 points.
Getting around. La Paz 45, Puerto Plata 30: La Paz leads by 15 points.
Shopping & style. La Paz 45, Puerto Plata 30: La Paz leads by 15 points.
Affordability. La Paz 92, Puerto Plata 64: La Paz leads by 28 points.
Live music & performing arts. La Paz 35, Puerto Plata 18: La Paz leads by 17 points.
Wellness & relaxation. La Paz 12, Puerto Plata 35: Puerto Plata leads by 23 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: La Paz and Puerto Plata.

Your match

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

La Paz
42match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Puerto Plata
Best match
45match

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.

La Paz in July

13 °Cdaytime high
-2 °Cnight-time low
16 mmrain in the month
No seasea
11 hdaylight a day

Puerto Plata in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
67 mmrain in the month
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
La PazPuerto Plata

Where the figures come from

La Paz 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.

Puerto Plata 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. La Paz: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Puerto Plata: 1993-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Puerto Plata (15.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLa PazPuerto Plata
Official languageSpanish, Aymara, Quechua, GuaraniSpanish
CurrencyBoliviano (BOB)Dominican Peso (DOP)
SocketsAC50 HzAB110 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-4UTC-4
Emergency number911911
Elevation3,640 m34 m
Main airportEl Alto International Airport (LPB)6 km from centre12 non-stop destinationsGregorio Luperon International Airport (POP)13 km from centre16 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureLa PazPuerto Plata
City population755,732-
People per km²1,601-
Museums within 10 km211
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 La Paz or Puerto Plata somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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). 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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.