VacationSelector
The opera house on Place de la Comédie, Montpellier
MontpellierThe opera house on Place de la Comédie
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills

Photos: Montpellier by Peter, CC BY 2.0, cropped; Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Montpellier 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 Montpellier for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • day trips

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

Choose Puerto Vallarta for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • prices

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. Montpellier 64, Puerto Vallarta 85: Puerto Vallarta leads by 21 points.
Food & drink. Montpellier 64, Puerto Vallarta 62: Montpellier leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Montpellier 60, Puerto Vallarta 28: Montpellier leads by 32 points.
Nightlife. Montpellier 56, Puerto Vallarta 66: Puerto Vallarta leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montpellier 72, Puerto Vallarta 76: Puerto Vallarta leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Montpellier 85, Puerto Vallarta 55: Montpellier leads by 30 points.
Good for families. Montpellier 62, Puerto Vallarta 65: Puerto Vallarta leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Montpellier 74, Puerto Vallarta 45: Montpellier leads by 29 points.
Shopping & style. Montpellier 47, Puerto Vallarta 42: Montpellier leads by 5 points.
Affordability. Montpellier 50, Puerto Vallarta 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. Montpellier 63, Puerto Vallarta 32: Montpellier leads by 31 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montpellier 42, Puerto Vallarta 52: Puerto Vallarta leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montpellier and Puerto Vallarta.

Your match

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

Montpellier
Best match
62match

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

Puerto Vallarta
56match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Montpellier in July

30 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
17 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
21 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Puerto Vallarta in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
209 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
MontpellierPuerto Vallarta

Where the figures come from

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. Montpellier: 1991-2020 normals, Montpellier (7.8 km from centre). Puerto Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureMontpellierPuerto Vallarta
Official languageFrenchSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number112911
Elevation7 m101 m
Main airportMontpellier-Méditerranée Airport (MPL)8 km from centre41 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontpellierPuerto Vallarta
City population310,240224,166
People per km²5,4524,311
Museums within 10 km142
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
Swim season, months above 21 °C2 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Montpellier 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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. 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.