VacationSelector
The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, Muscat
MuscatThe Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo

Photos: Muscat by Alli Khalil, CC BY 4.0, cropped; Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Muscat or Puerto Escondido?

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 Muscat for

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

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

Choose Puerto Escondido for

  • nightlife
  • prices
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Puerto Escondido’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. Muscat 72, Puerto Escondido 82: Puerto Escondido leads by 10 points.
Food & drink. Muscat 44, Puerto Escondido 48: Puerto Escondido leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Muscat 55, Puerto Escondido 8: Muscat leads by 47 points.
Nightlife. Muscat 14, Puerto Escondido 45: Puerto Escondido leads by 31 points.
Nature & outdoors. Muscat 70, Puerto Escondido 78: Puerto Escondido leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Muscat 62, Puerto Escondido 35: Muscat leads by 27 points.
Good for families. Muscat 52, Puerto Escondido 42: Muscat leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Muscat 20, Puerto Escondido 40: Puerto Escondido leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Muscat 42, Puerto Escondido 22: Muscat leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Muscat 45, Puerto Escondido 68: Puerto Escondido leads by 23 points.
Live music & performing arts. Muscat 40, Puerto Escondido 12: Muscat leads by 28 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Muscat 55, Puerto Escondido 58: Puerto Escondido leads by 3 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Muscat and Puerto Escondido.

Your match

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

Muscat
Best match
48match

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

Puerto Escondido
45match

Wins on nightlife and prices with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Muscat in July

33 °Cdaytime high
30 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
31 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Puerto Escondido in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
116 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
MuscatPuerto Escondido

Where the figures come from

Muscat's sunshine is measured 32 km from the centre, at Seeb, International Airport.

Puerto Escondido's temperatures are measured 66 km from the centre, at Puerto Angel, Oax..

Puerto Escondido 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. Muscat: 1991-2020 normals, Qaboos Port (3.4 km from centre). Puerto Escondido: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (65.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMuscatPuerto Escondido
Official languageArabicSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyRial Omani (OMR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsCG240 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+4UTC-6
Emergency number968911
Elevation69 m60 m
Main airportMuscat International Airport (MCT)31 km from centre83 non-stop destinationsPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-9 days

By the numbers

MeasureMuscatPuerto Escondido
City population1,421,40929,903
People per km²406-
Museums within 10 km100
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Muscat or Puerto Escondido 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). 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. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.