VacationSelector
Waterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor, Newport Beach
Newport BeachWaterfront houses on Harbor Island in Newport Harbor
Palms on a white beach at Cap Cana, Punta Cana
Punta CanaPalms on a white beach at Cap Cana

Photos: Newport Beach by Don Ramey Logan, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Punta Cana by Mary Mark Ockerbloom, CC0.

Newport Beach or Punta Cana?

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 Newport Beach for

  • day trips
  • shopping
  • live music and the arts

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

Choose Punta Cana for

  • prices
  • beaches
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Punta Cana’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. Newport Beach 70, Punta Cana 94: Punta Cana leads by 24 points.
Food & drink. Newport Beach 50, Punta Cana 30: Newport Beach leads by 20 points.
Culture & sights. Newport Beach 20, Punta Cana 8: Newport Beach leads by 12 points.
Nightlife. Newport Beach 33, Punta Cana 40: Punta Cana leads by 7 points.
Nature & outdoors. Newport Beach 66, Punta Cana 52: Newport Beach leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Newport Beach 70, Punta Cana 35: Newport Beach leads by 35 points.
Good for families. Newport Beach 80, Punta Cana 68: Newport Beach leads by 12 points.
Getting around. Newport Beach 20, Punta Cana 15: Newport Beach leads by 5 points.
Shopping & style. Newport Beach 62, Punta Cana 30: Newport Beach leads by 32 points.
Affordability. Newport Beach 15, Punta Cana 44: Punta Cana leads by 29 points.
Live music & performing arts. Newport Beach 46, Punta Cana 15: Newport Beach leads by 31 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Newport Beach 44, Punta Cana 52: Punta Cana leads by 8 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Newport Beach and Punta Cana.

Your match

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

Newport Beach
Best match
48match

Wins on day trips and shopping with your weighting.

Punta Cana
40match

Wins on prices and beaches with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Newport Beach in July

26 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
1 mmrain in the month
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Punta Cana in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
96 mmrain in the month
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150JFMAMJJASOND
Newport BeachPunta Cana

Where the figures come from

Punta Cana 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. Newport Beach: 1991-2020 (rainfall 1981-2010) normals, Santa Ana / Paularino (7.1 km from centre). Punta Cana: 1993-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Punta Cana (0.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureNewport BeachPunta Cana
Official language-Spanish
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Dominican Peso (DOP)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB110 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-8, UTC-7 in summerUTC-4
Emergency number911911
Elevation3 m28 m
Main airportJohn Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA)7 km from centre53 non-stop destinationsPunta Cana International Airport (PUJ)1 km from centre93 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureNewport BeachPunta Cana
City population85,239138,919
People per km²622292
Museums within 10 km40
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Newport Beach or Punta Cana 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.