VacationSelector
A boat in the swell beside El Arco, Los Cabos
Los CabosA boat in the swell beside El Arco
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo

Photos: Los Cabos by Jules Clark, Pexels License; Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Los Cabos or Puerto Escondido?

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 Cabos for

  • nightlife
  • shopping
  • families

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

Choose Puerto Escondido for

  • prices
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Puerto Escondido’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 Cabos 84, Puerto Escondido 82: Los Cabos leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Los Cabos 54, Puerto Escondido 48: Los Cabos leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Los Cabos 20, Puerto Escondido 8: Los Cabos leads by 12 points.
Nightlife. Los Cabos 66, Puerto Escondido 45: Los Cabos leads by 21 points.
Nature & outdoors. Los Cabos and Puerto Escondido are level on 78.
Day trips. Los Cabos 42, Puerto Escondido 35: Los Cabos leads by 7 points.
Good for families. Los Cabos 55, Puerto Escondido 42: Los Cabos leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Los Cabos 28, Puerto Escondido 40: Puerto Escondido leads by 12 points.
Shopping & style. Los Cabos 36, Puerto Escondido 22: Los Cabos leads by 14 points.
Affordability. Los Cabos 28, Puerto Escondido 68: Puerto Escondido leads by 40 points.
Live music & performing arts. Los Cabos and Puerto Escondido are level on 12.
Wellness & relaxation. Los Cabos and Puerto Escondido are level on 58.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Los Cabos and Puerto Escondido.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Los Cabos
47match

Wins on nightlife and shopping with your weighting.

Puerto Escondido
45match

Wins on prices 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 Cabos in July

30 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
19 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
26 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Puerto Escondido in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
116 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Los CabosPuerto Escondido

Where the figures come from

Los Cabos 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 Escondido's temperatures are measured 66 km from the centre, at Puerto Angel, Oax..

Puerto Escondido 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 Cabos: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km. Puerto Escondido: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (65.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureLos CabosPuerto Escondido
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-7UTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation11 m60 m
Main airportLos Cabos International Airport (SJD)35 km from centre54 non-stop destinationsPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureLos CabosPuerto Escondido
City population202,69429,903
Museums within 10 km10
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 Los Cabos or Puerto Escondido 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. 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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.