VacationSelector
A lifeguard stand on South Beach, Miami
MiamiA lifeguard stand on South Beach
Punta del Este

Photos: Miami by Radomianin, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Miami or Punta del Este?

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 Miami for

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

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

Choose Punta del Este for

  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Punta del Este’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. Miami 90, Punta del Este 72: Miami leads by 18 points.
Food & drink. Miami 72, Punta del Este 45: Miami leads by 27 points.
Culture & sights. Miami 57, Punta del Este 22: Miami leads by 35 points.
Nightlife. Miami 82, Punta del Este 60: Miami leads by 22 points.
Nature & outdoors. Miami 64, Punta del Este 55: Miami leads by 9 points.
Day trips. Miami 42, Punta del Este 45: Punta del Este leads by 3 points.
Good for families. Miami 64, Punta del Este 55: Miami leads by 9 points.
Getting around. Miami and Punta del Este are level on 35.
Shopping & style. Miami 71, Punta del Este 42: Miami leads by 29 points.
Affordability. Miami 27, Punta del Este 20: Miami leads by 7 points.
Live music & performing arts. Miami 55, Punta del Este 22: Miami leads by 33 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Miami 44, Punta del Este 32: Miami leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Miami and Punta del Este.

Your match

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

Miami
Best match
59match

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

Punta del Este
42match

Wins on day trips with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Miami in July

33 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
186 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
29 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Punta del Este in July

15 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
101 mmrain in the month
5 hsunshine a day
12 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
MiamiPunta del Este

Where the figures come from

Punta del Este's temperatures are measured 79 km from the centre, at Rocha.

Punta del Este 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. Miami: 1991-2020 normals, Miami International Airport (10 km from centre). Punta del Este: 1991-2020 normals, Rocha (78.5 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMiamiPunta del Este
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Peso Uruguayo (UYU)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzCFIL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-3
Emergency number911911
Elevation2 m11 m
Main airportMiami International Airport (MIA)7 km from centre198 non-stop destinationsCapitan Corbeta CA Curbelo International Airport (PDP)18 km from centre6 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasureMiamiPunta del Este
City population442,2419,277
People per km²3,046455
Museums within 10 km175
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months3 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Miami or Punta del Este 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.