VacationSelector
Rathausquai on the Reuss, Lucerne
LucerneRathausquai on the Reuss
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills

Photos: Lucerne by ILOVESwitzerland, Pexels License; Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Lucerne 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 Lucerne for

  • getting around
  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights

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

Choose Puerto Vallarta for

  • prices
  • beaches
  • nightlife

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. Lucerne 35, Puerto Vallarta 85: Puerto Vallarta leads by 50 points.
Food & drink. Lucerne 35, Puerto Vallarta 62: Puerto Vallarta leads by 27 points.
Culture & sights. Lucerne 58, Puerto Vallarta 28: Lucerne leads by 30 points.
Nightlife. Lucerne 28, Puerto Vallarta 66: Puerto Vallarta leads by 38 points.
Nature & outdoors. Lucerne 92, Puerto Vallarta 76: Lucerne leads by 16 points.
Day trips. Lucerne 78, Puerto Vallarta 55: Lucerne leads by 23 points.
Good for families. Lucerne 66, Puerto Vallarta 65: Lucerne leads by 1 points.
Getting around. Lucerne 86, Puerto Vallarta 45: Lucerne leads by 41 points.
Shopping & style. Lucerne 46, Puerto Vallarta 42: Lucerne leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Lucerne 8, Puerto Vallarta 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 52 points.
Live music & performing arts. Lucerne 66, Puerto Vallarta 32: Lucerne leads by 34 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Lucerne 46, Puerto Vallarta 52: Puerto Vallarta leads by 6 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Lucerne and Puerto Vallarta.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Lucerne
54match

Wins on getting around and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Puerto Vallarta
56match

Wins on prices and beaches with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Lucerne in July

24 °Cdaytime high
13 °Cnight-time low
141 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
16 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
LucernePuerto Vallarta

Where the figures come from

Lucerne 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.

Lucerne's sunshine is measured 42 km from the centre, at Zurich Town / Ville..

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. Lucerne: 2005-2025 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Emmen (4.2 km from centre). Puerto Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureLucernePuerto Vallarta
Official languageFrench, German, Italian, RomanshSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencySwiss Franc (CHF)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCJ230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number112911
Elevation436 m101 m
Main airportZürich Airport (ZRH)49 km from centre226 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureLucernePuerto Vallarta
City population86,234224,166
People per km²2,9634,311
Museums within 10 km142
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Lucerne 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. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.