VacationSelector
Botero sculptures on Plaza Botero, Medellin
MedellinBotero sculptures on Plaza Botero
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills

Photos: Medellin by Steffen Schmitz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Medellin or Puerto Vallarta?

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 Medellin for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • nightlife

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

Choose Puerto Vallarta for

  • beaches
  • wellness
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Puerto Vallarta’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. Medellin 5, Puerto Vallarta 85: Puerto Vallarta leads by 80 points.
Food & drink. Medellin 58, Puerto Vallarta 62: Puerto Vallarta leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Medellin 42, Puerto Vallarta 28: Medellin leads by 14 points.
Nightlife. Medellin 76, Puerto Vallarta 66: Medellin leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Medellin 66, Puerto Vallarta 76: Puerto Vallarta leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Medellin 58, Puerto Vallarta 55: Medellin leads by 3 points.
Good for families. Medellin 50, Puerto Vallarta 65: Puerto Vallarta leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Medellin 55, Puerto Vallarta 45: Medellin leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Medellin 45, Puerto Vallarta 42: Medellin leads by 3 points.
Affordability. Medellin 80, Puerto Vallarta 60: Medellin leads by 20 points.
Live music & performing arts. Medellin 42, Puerto Vallarta 32: Medellin leads by 10 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Medellin 30, Puerto Vallarta 52: Puerto Vallarta leads by 22 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Medellin and Puerto Vallarta.

Your match

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

Medellin
51match

Wins on prices and culture and sights with your weighting.

Puerto Vallarta
Best match
56match

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.

Medellin in July

29 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
133 mmrain in the month
No seasea
12 hdaylight a day

Puerto Vallarta in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
209 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
MedellinPuerto Vallarta

Where the figures come from

Medellin 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.

Puerto Vallarta 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. Medellin: 1958-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Medellin / Olaya Herrera (5.2 km from centre). Puerto Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureMedellinPuerto Vallarta
Official languageSpanishSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyColombian Peso (COP)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-6
Emergency number123911
Elevation1,405 m101 m
Main airportJose Maria Córdova International Airport (MDE)19 km from centre41 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year19 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureMedellinPuerto Vallarta
City population2,529,403224,166
People per km²6,6444,311
Museums within 10 km142
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
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 Medellin or Puerto Vallarta 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). 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.