VacationSelector
Seven Mile Beach, Negril
NegrilSeven Mile Beach
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills

Photos: Negril by gustavo.kunst, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Negril 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 Negril for

  • beaches
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Puerto Vallarta for

  • shopping
  • food and drink
  • nightlife

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. Negril 93, Puerto Vallarta 85: Negril leads by 8 points.
Food & drink. Negril 36, Puerto Vallarta 62: Puerto Vallarta leads by 26 points.
Culture & sights. Negril 8, Puerto Vallarta 28: Puerto Vallarta leads by 20 points.
Nightlife. Negril 40, Puerto Vallarta 66: Puerto Vallarta leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Negril 60, Puerto Vallarta 76: Puerto Vallarta leads by 16 points.
Day trips. Negril 35, Puerto Vallarta 55: Puerto Vallarta leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Negril 45, Puerto Vallarta 65: Puerto Vallarta leads by 20 points.
Getting around. Negril 30, Puerto Vallarta 45: Puerto Vallarta leads by 15 points.
Shopping & style. Negril 15, Puerto Vallarta 42: Puerto Vallarta leads by 27 points.
Affordability. Negril 44, Puerto Vallarta 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 16 points.
Live music & performing arts. Negril 33, Puerto Vallarta 32: Negril leads by 1 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Negril and Puerto Vallarta are level on 52.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Negril and Puerto Vallarta.

Your match

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

Negril
41match

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

Puerto Vallarta
Best match
56match

Wins on shopping 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.

Negril in July

34 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
174 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
29 °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
NegrilPuerto Vallarta

Where the figures come from

Negril's temperatures are measured 52 km from the centre, at Montego Bay / Sangster.

Negril 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.

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. Negril: 1991-2020 normals, Montego Bay / Sangster (51.8 km from centre). Puerto Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureNegrilPuerto Vallarta
Official languageEnglish, Jamaican PatoisSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyJamaican Dollar (JMD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB116 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC-5UTC-6
Emergency numberPolice 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110911
Elevation10 m101 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)52 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureNegrilPuerto Vallarta
City population4,500224,166
People per km²-4,311
Museums within 10 km02
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 Negril 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). 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 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.