VacationSelector
The SkyWheel by the beach, Myrtle Beach
Myrtle BeachThe SkyWheel by the beach
A cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan, San Juan
San JuanA cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan

Photos: Myrtle Beach by The ed17, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; San Juan by Mohan Nannapaneni, Pexels License.

Myrtle Beach or San Juan?

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 Myrtle Beach for

  • families
  • prices

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

Choose San Juan for

  • culture and sights
  • food and drink
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on San Juan’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. Myrtle Beach and San Juan are level on 84.
Food & drink. Myrtle Beach 38, San Juan 66: San Juan leads by 28 points.
Culture & sights. Myrtle Beach 20, San Juan 64: San Juan leads by 44 points.
Nightlife. Myrtle Beach 42, San Juan 70: San Juan leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Myrtle Beach 46, San Juan 74: San Juan leads by 28 points.
Day trips. Myrtle Beach 50, San Juan 52: San Juan leads by 2 points.
Good for families. Myrtle Beach 80, San Juan 58: Myrtle Beach leads by 22 points.
Getting around. Myrtle Beach 18, San Juan 38: San Juan leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Myrtle Beach 38, San Juan 50: San Juan leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Myrtle Beach 52, San Juan 38: Myrtle Beach leads by 14 points.
Live music & performing arts. Myrtle Beach 30, San Juan 55: San Juan leads by 25 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Myrtle Beach 28, San Juan 40: San Juan leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Myrtle Beach and San Juan.

Your match

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

Myrtle Beach
44match

Wins on families and prices with your weighting.

San Juan
Best match
57match

Wins on culture and sights and food and drink with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Myrtle Beach in July

31 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
172 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

San Juan in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
Myrtle BeachSan Juan

Where the figures come from

Myrtle Beach 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. Myrtle Beach: 1971-2000 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Myrtle Beach Air Force Base (5.5 km from centre). San Juan: 1991-2020 normals, San Juan / Int., Puerto Rico (12.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureMyrtle BeachSan Juan
Official language-Spanish, English
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-4
Emergency number911911
Elevation8 m3 m
Main airportMyrtle Beach International Airport (MYR)5 km from centre60 non-stop destinationsLuis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU)12 km from centre59 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year12 days21 days

By the numbers

MeasureMyrtle BeachSan Juan
City population35,682342,259
People per km²5912,847
Museums within 10 km218
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C6 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Myrtle Beach or San Juan 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.