VacationSelector
Colourful houses in the old town, Mazatlan
MazatlanColourful houses in the old town
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo

Photos: Mazatlan by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Mazatlan 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 Mazatlan for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • families

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

Choose Puerto Escondido for

  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors
  • beaches

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. Mazatlan 80, Puerto Escondido 82: Puerto Escondido leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Mazatlan 62, Puerto Escondido 48: Mazatlan leads by 14 points.
Culture & sights. Mazatlan 42, Puerto Escondido 8: Mazatlan leads by 34 points.
Nightlife. Mazatlan 55, Puerto Escondido 45: Mazatlan leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Mazatlan 66, Puerto Escondido 78: Puerto Escondido leads by 12 points.
Day trips. Mazatlan 45, Puerto Escondido 35: Mazatlan leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Mazatlan 60, Puerto Escondido 42: Mazatlan leads by 18 points.
Getting around. Mazatlan 42, Puerto Escondido 40: Mazatlan leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Mazatlan 30, Puerto Escondido 22: Mazatlan leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Mazatlan 70, Puerto Escondido 68: Mazatlan leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Mazatlan 40, Puerto Escondido 12: Mazatlan leads by 28 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Mazatlan 35, Puerto Escondido 58: Puerto Escondido leads by 23 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Mazatlan and Puerto Escondido.

Your match

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

Mazatlan
Best match
52match

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

Puerto Escondido
45match

Wins on wellness 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

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

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
MazatlanPuerto 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. Mazatlan: 1991-2020 normals, Colonia Juan Carras-Co Mazatlan, Sin. (2 km from centre). Puerto Escondido: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (65.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMazatlanPuerto 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
Elevation139 m60 m
Main airportGeneral Rafael Buelna International Airport (MZT)16 km from centre23 non-stop destinationsPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureMazatlanPuerto Escondido
City population441,97529,903
Museums within 10 km30
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 Mazatlan 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. 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.