VacationSelector
The church of San Estanislao at Altos de Chavón, La Romana
La RomanaThe church of San Estanislao at Altos de Chavón
Colourful houses in the old town, Mazatlan
MazatlanColourful houses in the old town

Photos: La Romana by Edgar El, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Mazatlan by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

La Romana or Mazatlan?

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 Romana for

  • wellness
  • day trips
  • beaches

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

Choose Mazatlan for

  • nightlife
  • food and drink
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Mazatlan’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 Romana 84, Mazatlan 80: La Romana leads by 4 points.
Food & drink. La Romana 38, Mazatlan 62: Mazatlan leads by 24 points.
Culture & sights. La Romana 24, Mazatlan 42: Mazatlan leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. La Romana 30, Mazatlan 55: Mazatlan leads by 25 points.
Nature & outdoors. La Romana 62, Mazatlan 66: Mazatlan leads by 4 points.
Day trips. La Romana 52, Mazatlan 45: La Romana leads by 7 points.
Good for families. La Romana 56, Mazatlan 60: Mazatlan leads by 4 points.
Getting around. La Romana 24, Mazatlan 42: Mazatlan leads by 18 points.
Shopping & style. La Romana 28, Mazatlan 30: Mazatlan leads by 2 points.
Affordability. La Romana 50, Mazatlan 70: Mazatlan leads by 20 points.
Live music & performing arts. La Romana 17, Mazatlan 40: Mazatlan leads by 23 points.
Wellness & relaxation. La Romana 44, Mazatlan 35: La Romana leads by 9 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: La Romana and Mazatlan.

Your match

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

La Romana
42match

Wins on wellness and day trips with your weighting.

Mazatlan
Best match
52match

Wins on nightlife and food and drink with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

La Romana in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
87 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Mazatlan in July

34 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
La RomanaMazatlan

Where the figures come from

La Romana's temperatures are measured 65 km from the centre, at Punta Cana.

La Romana 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 Romana: 1993-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Punta Cana (65.4 km from centre). Mazatlan: 1991-2020 normals, Colonia Juan Carras-Co Mazatlan, Sin. (2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLa RomanaMazatlan
Official languageSpanishSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyDominican Peso (DOP)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-4UTC-7
Emergency number911911
Elevation10 m139 m
Main airportCasa De Campo International Airport (LRM)7 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsGeneral Rafael Buelna International Airport (MZT)16 km from centre23 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureLa RomanaMazatlan
City population139,238441,975
People per km²512-
Museums within 10 km03
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow La Romana or Mazatlan 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.