VacationSelector
A yellow tram in a narrow street, Lisbon
LisbonA yellow tram in a narrow street
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills

Photos: Lisbon by Riccardo Toso, Pexels License; Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Lisbon 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 Lisbon for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • day trips

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

Choose Puerto Vallarta for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • 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. Lisbon 50, Puerto Vallarta 85: Puerto Vallarta leads by 35 points.
Food & drink. Lisbon 75, Puerto Vallarta 62: Lisbon leads by 13 points.
Culture & sights. Lisbon 78, Puerto Vallarta 28: Lisbon leads by 50 points.
Nightlife. Lisbon 75, Puerto Vallarta 66: Lisbon leads by 9 points.
Nature & outdoors. Lisbon 75, Puerto Vallarta 76: Puerto Vallarta leads by 1 points.
Day trips. Lisbon 82, Puerto Vallarta 55: Lisbon leads by 27 points.
Good for families. Lisbon 62, Puerto Vallarta 65: Puerto Vallarta leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Lisbon 66, Puerto Vallarta 45: Lisbon leads by 21 points.
Shopping & style. Lisbon 60, Puerto Vallarta 42: Lisbon leads by 18 points.
Affordability. Lisbon 55, Puerto Vallarta 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 5 points.
Live music & performing arts. Lisbon 60, Puerto Vallarta 32: Lisbon leads by 28 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Lisbon 36, Puerto Vallarta 52: Puerto Vallarta leads by 16 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Lisbon and Puerto Vallarta.

Your match

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

Lisbon
Best match
65match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Puerto Vallarta
56match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Lisbon in July

28 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
3 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
18 °Csea
15 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
LisbonPuerto Vallarta

Where the figures come from

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. Lisbon: 1991-2020 normals, Lisboa / Geof (1.1 km from centre). Puerto Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureLisbonPuerto Vallarta
Official languagePortugueseSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC, UTC+1 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number112911
Elevation100 m101 m
Main airportLisbon Humberto Delgado Airport (LIS)7 km from centre156 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureLisbonPuerto Vallarta
City population545,796224,166
People per km²5,4534,311
Museums within 10 km802
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km31
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Lisbon or Puerto 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). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.