VacationSelector
The Royal Palace, Madrid
MadridThe Royal Palace
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo

Photos: Madrid by Mert Ocak, Pexels License; Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Madrid 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 Madrid for

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

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

Choose Puerto Escondido for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

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. Madrid 5, Puerto Escondido 82: Puerto Escondido leads by 77 points.
Food & drink. Madrid 80, Puerto Escondido 48: Madrid leads by 32 points.
Culture & sights. Madrid 86, Puerto Escondido 8: Madrid leads by 78 points.
Nightlife. Madrid 85, Puerto Escondido 45: Madrid leads by 40 points.
Nature & outdoors. Madrid 60, Puerto Escondido 78: Puerto Escondido leads by 18 points.
Day trips. Madrid 89, Puerto Escondido 35: Madrid leads by 54 points.
Good for families. Madrid 68, Puerto Escondido 42: Madrid leads by 26 points.
Getting around. Madrid 84, Puerto Escondido 40: Madrid leads by 44 points.
Shopping & style. Madrid 75, Puerto Escondido 22: Madrid leads by 53 points.
Affordability. Madrid 50, Puerto Escondido 68: Puerto Escondido leads by 18 points.
Live music & performing arts. Madrid 77, Puerto Escondido 12: Madrid leads by 65 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Madrid 36, Puerto Escondido 58: Puerto Escondido leads by 22 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Madrid and Puerto Escondido.

Your match

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

Madrid
Best match
66match

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

Puerto Escondido
45match

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.

Madrid in July

33 °Cdaytime high
20 °Cnight-time low
9 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 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
MadridPuerto Escondido

Where the figures come from

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. Madrid: 1991-2020 normals, Madrid (1.7 km from centre). Puerto Escondido: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (65.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMadridPuerto Escondido
Official languageSpanishSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCF230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number112911
Elevation663 m60 m
Main airportAdolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport (MAD)14 km from centre239 non-stop destinationsPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureMadridPuerto Escondido
City population3,506,73029,903
People per km²5,801-
Museums within 10 km880
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km40
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 Madrid or Puerto Escondido 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). 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.