VacationSelector
The steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi, New Orleans
New OrleansThe steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills

Photos: New Orleans by Bernard Spragg, CC0; Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

New Orleans 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 New Orleans for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • food and drink

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

Choose Puerto Vallarta for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

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. New Orleans 14, Puerto Vallarta 85: Puerto Vallarta leads by 71 points.
Food & drink. New Orleans 84, Puerto Vallarta 62: New Orleans leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. New Orleans 67, Puerto Vallarta 28: New Orleans leads by 39 points.
Nightlife. New Orleans 85, Puerto Vallarta 66: New Orleans leads by 19 points.
Nature & outdoors. New Orleans 42, Puerto Vallarta 76: Puerto Vallarta leads by 34 points.
Day trips. New Orleans 52, Puerto Vallarta 55: Puerto Vallarta leads by 3 points.
Good for families. New Orleans 55, Puerto Vallarta 65: Puerto Vallarta leads by 10 points.
Getting around. New Orleans 55, Puerto Vallarta 45: New Orleans leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. New Orleans 54, Puerto Vallarta 42: New Orleans leads by 12 points.
Affordability. New Orleans 40, Puerto Vallarta 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 20 points.
Live music & performing arts. New Orleans 80, Puerto Vallarta 32: New Orleans leads by 48 points.
Wellness & relaxation. New Orleans 25, Puerto Vallarta 52: Puerto Vallarta leads by 27 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: New Orleans and Puerto Vallarta.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

New Orleans
54match

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

Puerto Vallarta
56match

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.

New Orleans in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
169 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Puerto Vallarta in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
209 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
New OrleansPuerto Vallarta

Where the figures come from

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. New Orleans: 1991-2020 normals, New Orleans Airport (2.7 km from centre). Puerto Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureNew OrleansPuerto Vallarta
Official language-Spanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6, UTC-5 in summerUTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation-2 m101 m
Main airportLouis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)18 km from centre51 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasureNew OrleansPuerto Vallarta
City population383,997224,166
People per km²4234,311
Museums within 10 km162
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
Swim season, months above 21 °C7 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow New Orleans 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). 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.