VacationSelector
Colourful houses in the old town, Mazatlan
MazatlanColourful houses in the old town
Portofino and its bay from the hillside, Portofino
PortofinoPortofino and its bay from the hillside

Photos: Mazatlan by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Portofino by Michal Osmenda, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Mazatlan or Portofino?

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 Mazatlan for

  • prices
  • nightlife
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Portofino for

  • day trips
  • nature and the outdoors
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Portofino’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. Mazatlan 80, Portofino 60: Mazatlan leads by 20 points.
Food & drink. Mazatlan 62, Portofino 36: Mazatlan leads by 26 points.
Culture & sights. Mazatlan 42, Portofino 22: Mazatlan leads by 20 points.
Nightlife. Mazatlan 55, Portofino 14: Mazatlan leads by 41 points.
Nature & outdoors. Mazatlan 66, Portofino 77: Portofino leads by 11 points.
Day trips. Mazatlan 45, Portofino 76: Portofino leads by 31 points.
Good for families. Mazatlan 60, Portofino 33: Mazatlan leads by 27 points.
Getting around. Mazatlan 42, Portofino 50: Portofino leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Mazatlan 30, Portofino 29: Mazatlan leads by 1 points.
Affordability. Mazatlan 70, Portofino 9: Mazatlan leads by 61 points.
Live music & performing arts. Mazatlan 40, Portofino 7: Mazatlan leads by 33 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Mazatlan 35, Portofino 42: Portofino leads by 7 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Mazatlan and Portofino.

Your match

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

Mazatlan
Best match
52match

Wins on prices and nightlife with your weighting.

Portofino
38match

Wins on day trips and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Mazatlan in July

34 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Portofino in July

27 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
32 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
24 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
MazatlanPortofino

Where the figures come from

Portofino's temperatures are measured 31 km from the centre, at Genova / Sestri.

Portofino 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. Mazatlan: 1991-2020 normals, Colonia Juan Carras-Co Mazatlan, Sin. (2 km from centre). Portofino: 1991-2020 normals, Genova / Sestri (31 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMazatlanPortofino
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaItalian
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-7UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation139 m20 m
Main airportGeneral Rafael Buelna International Airport (MZT)16 km from centre23 non-stop destinationsGenoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport (GOA)32 km from centre25 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureMazatlanPortofino
City population441,975355
People per km²-142
Museums within 10 km314
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km02
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months4 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Mazatlan or Portofino 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.