VacationSelector
Place d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica, Montreal
MontrealPlace d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica
The beach and the bay with the mountains behind, Nuevo Vallarta
Nuevo VallartaThe beach and the bay with the mountains behind

Photos: Montreal by Arild Vågen, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Nuevo Vallarta by Harpqueen, Public domain.

Montreal or Nuevo 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 Montreal for

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

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

Choose Nuevo Vallarta for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Nuevo 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. Montreal 25, Nuevo Vallarta 84: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 59 points.
Food & drink. Montreal 78, Nuevo Vallarta 40: Montreal leads by 38 points.
Culture & sights. Montreal 60, Nuevo Vallarta 6: Montreal leads by 54 points.
Nightlife. Montreal 75, Nuevo Vallarta 16: Montreal leads by 59 points.
Nature & outdoors. Montreal 66, Nuevo Vallarta 75: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 9 points.
Day trips. Montreal 55, Nuevo Vallarta 58: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 3 points.
Good for families. Montreal 68, Nuevo Vallarta 73: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 5 points.
Getting around. Montreal 72, Nuevo Vallarta 25: Montreal leads by 47 points.
Shopping & style. Montreal 60, Nuevo Vallarta 22: Montreal leads by 38 points.
Affordability. Montreal and Nuevo Vallarta are level on 45.
Live music & performing arts. Montreal 76, Nuevo Vallarta 18: Montreal leads by 58 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Montreal 57, Nuevo Vallarta 55: Montreal leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Montreal and Nuevo Vallarta.

Your match

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

Montreal
Best match
61match

Wins on nightlife and live music and the arts with your weighting.

Nuevo Vallarta
43match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Montreal in July

27 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
98 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Nuevo Vallarta in July

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

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
MontrealNuevo Vallarta

Where the figures come from

Nuevo 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. Montreal: 1991-2020 normals, Montreal McTavish (3.2 km from centre). Nuevo Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureMontrealNuevo Vallarta
Official languageFrench, EnglishSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyCanadian Dollar (CAD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation31 m3 m
Main airportMontreal / Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL)16 km from centre166 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)4 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureMontrealNuevo Vallarta
City population1,895,2111,301
People per km²3,806-
Museums within 10 km370
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 Montreal or Nuevo 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). 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.