VacationSelector
The beach and the bay with the mountains behind, Nuevo Vallarta
Nuevo VallartaThe beach and the bay with the mountains behind
La Concha beach and Monte Urgull, San Sebastian
San SebastianLa Concha beach and Monte Urgull

Photos: Nuevo Vallarta by Harpqueen, Public domain; San Sebastian by Guérin Nicolas, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Nuevo Vallarta or San Sebastian?

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
  • prices
  • families

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

Choose San Sebastian for

  • getting around
  • food and drink
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on San Sebastian’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, San Sebastian 68: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 16 points.
Food & drink. Nuevo Vallarta 40, San Sebastian 88: San Sebastian leads by 48 points.
Culture & sights. Nuevo Vallarta 6, San Sebastian 52: San Sebastian leads by 46 points.
Nightlife. Nuevo Vallarta 16, San Sebastian 44: San Sebastian leads by 28 points.
Nature & outdoors. Nuevo Vallarta 75, San Sebastian 72: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 3 points.
Day trips. Nuevo Vallarta 58, San Sebastian 80: San Sebastian leads by 22 points.
Good for families. Nuevo Vallarta 73, San Sebastian 66: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 7 points.
Getting around. Nuevo Vallarta 25, San Sebastian 80: San Sebastian leads by 55 points.
Shopping & style. Nuevo Vallarta 22, San Sebastian 40: San Sebastian leads by 18 points.
Affordability. Nuevo Vallarta 45, San Sebastian 32: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 13 points.
Live music & performing arts. Nuevo Vallarta 18, San Sebastian 45: San Sebastian leads by 27 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Nuevo Vallarta 55, San Sebastian 50: Nuevo Vallarta leads by 5 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Nuevo Vallarta and San Sebastian.

Your match

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

Nuevo Vallarta
43match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

San Sebastian
Best match
60match

Wins on getting around 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.

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 Sebastian in July

22 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
92 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
21 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Nuevo VallartaSan Sebastian

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.

San Sebastian's station stands 252 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

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 Sebastian: 1991-2020 normals, San Sebastian / Igueldo (6.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureNuevo VallartaSan Sebastian
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation3 m6 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)4 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsSan Sebastián Airport (EAS)16 km from centre11 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureNuevo VallartaSan Sebastian
City population1,301189,866
People per km²-3,118
Museums within 10 km014
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km13
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months2 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Nuevo Vallarta or San Sebastian 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.