VacationSelector
The beach and the bay with the mountains behind, Nuevo Vallarta
Nuevo VallartaThe beach and the bay with the mountains behind
Palm Canyon Drive, lined with tall palms, Palm Springs
Palm SpringsPalm Canyon Drive, lined with tall palms

Photos: Nuevo Vallarta by Harpqueen, Public domain; Palm Springs by Domenico Convertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Nuevo Vallarta or Palm Springs?

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 Nuevo Vallarta for

  • beaches
  • families
  • day trips

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

Choose Palm Springs for

  • culture and sights
  • wellness
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Palm Springs’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. Nuevo Vallarta 84, Palm Springs 7: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 77 points.
Food & drink. Nuevo Vallarta and Palm Springs are level on 40.
Culture & sights. Nuevo Vallarta 6, Palm Springs 42: Palm Springs leads by 36 points.
Nightlife. Nuevo Vallarta 16, Palm Springs 36: Palm Springs leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Nuevo Vallarta 75, Palm Springs 78: Palm Springs leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Nuevo Vallarta 58, Palm Springs 38: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Nuevo Vallarta 73, Palm Springs 40: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 33 points.
Getting around. Nuevo Vallarta 25, Palm Springs 22: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 3 points.
Shopping & style. Nuevo Vallarta 22, Palm Springs 44: Palm Springs leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Nuevo Vallarta 45, Palm Springs 32: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 13 points.
Live music & performing arts. Nuevo Vallarta 18, Palm Springs 40: Palm Springs leads by 22 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Nuevo Vallarta 55, Palm Springs 80: Palm Springs leads by 25 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Nuevo Vallarta and Palm Springs.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Nuevo Vallarta
43match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Palm Springs
42match

Wins on culture and sights and wellness with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Nuevo Vallarta in July

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

Palm Springs in July

42 °Cdaytime high
28 °Cnight-time low
5 mmrain in the month
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Nuevo VallartaPalm Springs

Where the figures come from

Nuevo 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.

Palm Springs 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. Nuevo Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km. Palm Springs: 2006-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Palm Springs (2.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureNuevo VallartaPalm Springs
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya-
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation3 m146 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)4 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsPalm Springs International Airport (PSP)2 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureNuevo VallartaPalm Springs
City population1,30144,575
People per km²-181
Museums within 10 km03
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Nuevo Vallarta or Palm Springs somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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.