VacationSelector
The church of San Estanislao at Altos de Chavón, La Romana
La RomanaThe church of San Estanislao at Altos de Chavón
The beach and the bay with the mountains behind, Nuevo Vallarta
Nuevo VallartaThe beach and the bay with the mountains behind

Photos: La Romana by Edgar El, CC BY 3.0, cropped; Nuevo Vallarta by Harpqueen, Public domain.

La Romana or Nuevo 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 La Romana for

  • culture and sights
  • nightlife
  • shopping

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

Choose Nuevo Vallarta for

  • families
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Nuevo 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. La Romana and Nuevo Vallarta are level on 84.
Food & drink. La Romana 38, Nuevo Vallarta 40: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. La Romana 24, Nuevo Vallarta 6: La Romana leads by 18 points.
Nightlife. La Romana 30, Nuevo Vallarta 16: La Romana leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. La Romana 62, Nuevo Vallarta 75: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 13 points.
Day trips. La Romana 52, Nuevo Vallarta 58: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 6 points.
Good for families. La Romana 56, Nuevo Vallarta 73: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 17 points.
Getting around. La Romana 24, Nuevo Vallarta 25: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 1 points.
Shopping & style. La Romana 28, Nuevo Vallarta 22: La Romana leads by 6 points.
Affordability. La Romana 50, Nuevo Vallarta 45: La Romana leads by 5 points.
Live music & performing arts. La Romana 17, Nuevo Vallarta 18: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 1 points.
Wellness & relaxation. La Romana 44, Nuevo Vallarta 55: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 11 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: La Romana and Nuevo Vallarta.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

La Romana
42match

Wins on culture and sights and nightlife with your weighting.

Nuevo Vallarta
43match

Wins on families and nature and the outdoors 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
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Nuevo Vallarta in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
206 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
La RomanaNuevo Vallarta

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.

Nuevo 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. La Romana: 1993-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Punta Cana (65.4 km from centre). Nuevo Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureLa RomanaNuevo Vallarta
Official languageSpanishSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyDominican Peso (DOP)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-4UTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation10 m3 m
Main airportCasa De Campo International Airport (LRM)7 km from centre13 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)4 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureLa RomanaNuevo Vallarta
City population139,2381,301
People per km²512-
Museums within 10 km00
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
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 Nuevo Vallarta 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.