VacationSelector
The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, Muscat
MuscatThe Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills

Photos: Muscat by Alli Khalil, CC BY 4.0, cropped; Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Muscat 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 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 Vallarta for

  • nightlife
  • getting around
  • food and drink

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. Muscat 72, Puerto Vallarta 85: Puerto Vallarta leads by 13 points.
Food & drink. Muscat 44, Puerto Vallarta 62: Puerto Vallarta leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Muscat 55, Puerto Vallarta 28: Muscat leads by 27 points.
Nightlife. Muscat 14, Puerto Vallarta 66: Puerto Vallarta leads by 52 points.
Nature & outdoors. Muscat 70, Puerto Vallarta 76: Puerto Vallarta leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Muscat 62, Puerto Vallarta 55: Muscat leads by 7 points.
Good for families. Muscat 52, Puerto Vallarta 65: Puerto Vallarta leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Muscat 20, Puerto Vallarta 45: Puerto Vallarta leads by 25 points.
Shopping & style. Muscat and Puerto Vallarta are level on 42.
Affordability. Muscat 45, Puerto Vallarta 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 15 points.
Live music & performing arts. Muscat 40, Puerto Vallarta 32: Muscat leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Muscat 55, Puerto Vallarta 52: Muscat 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 Vallarta.

Your match

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

Muscat
48match

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

Puerto Vallarta
Best match
56match

Wins on nightlife and getting around 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 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
MuscatPuerto Vallarta

Where the figures come from

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

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. Muscat: 1991-2020 normals, Qaboos Port (3.4 km from centre). Puerto Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureMuscatPuerto Vallarta
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 m101 m
Main airportMuscat International Airport (MCT)31 km from centre83 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-9 days

By the numbers

MeasureMuscatPuerto Vallarta
City population1,421,409224,166
People per km²4064,311
Museums within 10 km102
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
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 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). 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. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.