VacationSelector
The beach and the bay with the mountains behind, Nuevo Vallarta
Nuevo VallartaThe beach and the bay with the mountains behind
A cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan, San Juan
San JuanA cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan

Photos: Nuevo Vallarta by Harpqueen, Public domain; San Juan by Mohan Nannapaneni, Pexels License.

Nuevo Vallarta 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 Nuevo Vallarta for

  • families
  • wellness
  • prices

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

Choose San Juan for

  • culture and sights
  • nightlife
  • live music and the arts

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. Nuevo Vallarta and San Juan are level on 84.
Food & drink. Nuevo Vallarta 40, San Juan 66: San Juan leads by 26 points.
Culture & sights. Nuevo Vallarta 6, San Juan 64: San Juan leads by 58 points.
Nightlife. Nuevo Vallarta 16, San Juan 70: San Juan leads by 54 points.
Nature & outdoors. Nuevo Vallarta 75, San Juan 74: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 1 points.
Day trips. Nuevo Vallarta 58, San Juan 52: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 6 points.
Good for families. Nuevo Vallarta 73, San Juan 58: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Nuevo Vallarta 25, San Juan 38: San Juan leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Nuevo Vallarta 22, San Juan 50: San Juan leads by 28 points.
Affordability. Nuevo Vallarta 45, San Juan 38: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 7 points.
Live music & performing arts. Nuevo Vallarta 18, San Juan 55: San Juan leads by 37 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Nuevo Vallarta 55, San Juan 40: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 15 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Nuevo Vallarta and San Juan.

Your match

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

Nuevo Vallarta
43match

Wins on families and wellness with your weighting.

San Juan
Best match
57match

Wins on culture and sights and nightlife 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
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 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

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Nuevo VallartaSan Juan

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.

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. San Juan: 1991-2020 normals, San Juan / Int., Puerto Rico (12.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureNuevo VallartaSan Juan
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish, English
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-4
Emergency number911911
Elevation3 m3 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)4 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsLuis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU)12 km from centre59 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days21 days

By the numbers

MeasureNuevo VallartaSan Juan
City population1,301342,259
People per km²-2,847
Museums within 10 km018
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
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 Nuevo Vallarta or San Juan 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.