VacationSelector
Colourful houses in the old town, Mazatlan
MazatlanColourful houses in the old town
The wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind, Queenstown
QueenstownThe wharf at Queenstown with the Remarkables behind

Photos: Mazatlan by Gzzz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Queenstown by Robert Linsdell, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Mazatlan or Queenstown?

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

  • beaches
  • prices
  • culture and sights

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

Choose Queenstown for

  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Queenstown’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, Queenstown 20: Mazatlan leads by 60 points.
Food & drink. Mazatlan 62, Queenstown 45: Mazatlan leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Mazatlan 42, Queenstown 12: Mazatlan leads by 30 points.
Nightlife. Mazatlan 55, Queenstown 42: Mazatlan leads by 13 points.
Nature & outdoors. Mazatlan 66, Queenstown 97: Queenstown leads by 31 points.
Day trips. Mazatlan 45, Queenstown 50: Queenstown leads by 5 points.
Good for families. Mazatlan and Queenstown are level on 60.
Getting around. Mazatlan 42, Queenstown 45: Queenstown leads by 3 points.
Shopping & style. Mazatlan 30, Queenstown 28: Mazatlan leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Mazatlan 70, Queenstown 20: Mazatlan leads by 50 points.
Live music & performing arts. Mazatlan 40, Queenstown 14: Mazatlan leads by 26 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Mazatlan 35, Queenstown 42: Queenstown leads by 7 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Mazatlan and Queenstown.

Your match

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

Mazatlan
Best match
52match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Queenstown
40match

Wins on nature and the outdoors 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.

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

Queenstown in July

6 °Cdaytime high
-1 °Cnight-time low
115 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
9 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
MazatlanQueenstown

Where the figures come from

Queenstown 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. Mazatlan: 1991-2020 normals, Colonia Juan Carras-Co Mazatlan, Sin. (2 km from centre). Queenstown: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureMazatlanQueenstown
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaEnglish, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-7UTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency number911111
Elevation139 m324 m
Main airportGeneral Rafael Buelna International Airport (MZT)16 km from centre23 non-stop destinationsQueenstown Airport (ZQN)7 km from centre7 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureMazatlanQueenstown
City population441,97529,000
Museums within 10 km30
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Mazatlan or Queenstown 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.