VacationSelector
Colourful houses in the old town, Mazatlan
MazatlanColourful houses in the old town
Palms on a white beach at Cap Cana, Punta Cana
Punta CanaPalms on a white beach at Cap Cana

Photos: Mazatlan by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Punta Cana by Mary Mark Ockerbloom, CC0.

Mazatlan or Punta Cana?

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
  • food and drink
  • getting around

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

Choose Punta Cana for

  • wellness
  • beaches
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Punta Cana’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, Punta Cana 94: Punta Cana leads by 14 points.
Food & drink. Mazatlan 62, Punta Cana 30: Mazatlan leads by 32 points.
Culture & sights. Mazatlan 42, Punta Cana 8: Mazatlan leads by 34 points.
Nightlife. Mazatlan 55, Punta Cana 40: Mazatlan leads by 15 points.
Nature & outdoors. Mazatlan 66, Punta Cana 52: Mazatlan leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Mazatlan 45, Punta Cana 35: Mazatlan leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Mazatlan 60, Punta Cana 68: Punta Cana leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Mazatlan 42, Punta Cana 15: Mazatlan leads by 27 points.
Shopping & style. Mazatlan and Punta Cana are level on 30.
Affordability. Mazatlan 70, Punta Cana 44: Mazatlan leads by 26 points.
Live music & performing arts. Mazatlan 40, Punta Cana 15: Mazatlan leads by 25 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Mazatlan 35, Punta Cana 52: Punta Cana leads by 17 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Mazatlan and Punta Cana.

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 food and drink with your weighting.

Punta Cana
40match

Wins on wellness 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.

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

Punta Cana in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
96 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
MazatlanPunta Cana

Where the figures come from

Punta Cana 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). Punta Cana: 1993-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Punta Cana (0.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMazatlanPunta Cana
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Dominican Peso (DOP)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB110 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-7UTC-4
Emergency number911911
Elevation139 m28 m
Main airportGeneral Rafael Buelna International Airport (MZT)16 km from centre23 non-stop destinationsPunta Cana International Airport (PUJ)1 km from centre93 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureMazatlanPunta Cana
City population441,975138,919
People per km²-292
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 Punta Cana 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.