VacationSelector
The Ferris wheel on Santa Monica Pier, Los Angeles
Los AngelesThe Ferris wheel on Santa Monica Pier
Punta del Este

Photos: Los Angeles by Domenico Convertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Los Angeles or Punta del Este?

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 Los Angeles for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

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

Choose Punta del Este for

  • beaches
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Punta del Este’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. Los Angeles 60, Punta del Este 72: Punta del Este leads by 12 points.
Food & drink. Los Angeles 84, Punta del Este 45: Los Angeles leads by 39 points.
Culture & sights. Los Angeles 66, Punta del Este 22: Los Angeles leads by 44 points.
Nightlife. Los Angeles 67, Punta del Este 60: Los Angeles leads by 7 points.
Nature & outdoors. Los Angeles 80, Punta del Este 55: Los Angeles leads by 25 points.
Day trips. Los Angeles 60, Punta del Este 45: Los Angeles leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Los Angeles 84, Punta del Este 55: Los Angeles leads by 29 points.
Getting around. Los Angeles 25, Punta del Este 35: Punta del Este leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Los Angeles 80, Punta del Este 42: Los Angeles leads by 38 points.
Affordability. Los Angeles 24, Punta del Este 20: Los Angeles leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. Los Angeles 83, Punta del Este 22: Los Angeles leads by 61 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Los Angeles 60, Punta del Este 32: Los Angeles leads by 28 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Los Angeles and Punta del Este.

Your match

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

Los Angeles
Best match
64match

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

Punta del Este
42match

Wins on beaches and getting around with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Los Angeles in July

24 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Punta del Este in July

15 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
101 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
12 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
Los AngelesPunta del Este

Where the figures come from

Punta del Este's temperatures are measured 79 km from the centre, at Rocha.

Punta del Este 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. Los Angeles: 1991-2020 normals, Los Angeles Airport (18.5 km from centre). Punta del Este: 1991-2020 normals, Rocha (78.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLos AngelesPunta del Este
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Peso Uruguayo (UYU)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCFIL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC-3
Emergency number911911
Elevation106 m11 m
Main airportLos Angeles International Airport (LAX)19 km from centre177 non-stop destinationsCapitan Corbeta CA Curbelo International Airport (PDP)18 km from centre6 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureLos AngelesPunta del Este
City population3,898,7479,277
People per km²2,994455
Museums within 10 km395
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone3 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Los Angeles or Punta del Este 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). 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. 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.