VacationSelector
Santo Domingo church behind agaves, Oaxaca
OaxacaSanto Domingo church behind agaves
The Fortaleza San Felipe, Puerto Plata
Puerto PlataThe Fortaleza San Felipe

Photos: Oaxaca by Öskr Rck, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Puerto Plata by CareAhLine, CC0.

Oaxaca or Puerto Plata?

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 Oaxaca for

  • food and drink
  • culture and sights
  • shopping

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

Choose Puerto Plata for

  • beaches
  • families
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Puerto Plata’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. Oaxaca 5, Puerto Plata 80: Puerto Plata leads by 75 points.
Food & drink. Oaxaca 84, Puerto Plata 40: Oaxaca leads by 44 points.
Culture & sights. Oaxaca 74, Puerto Plata 35: Oaxaca leads by 39 points.
Nightlife. Oaxaca 40, Puerto Plata 38: Oaxaca leads by 2 points.
Nature & outdoors. Oaxaca 62, Puerto Plata 68: Puerto Plata leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Oaxaca 65, Puerto Plata 48: Oaxaca leads by 17 points.
Good for families. Oaxaca 40, Puerto Plata 57: Puerto Plata leads by 17 points.
Getting around. Oaxaca 55, Puerto Plata 30: Oaxaca leads by 25 points.
Shopping & style. Oaxaca 62, Puerto Plata 30: Oaxaca leads by 32 points.
Affordability. Oaxaca 77, Puerto Plata 64: Oaxaca leads by 13 points.
Live music & performing arts. Oaxaca 38, Puerto Plata 18: Oaxaca leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Oaxaca 50, Puerto Plata 35: Oaxaca leads by 15 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Oaxaca and Puerto Plata.

Your match

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

Oaxaca
Best match
54match

Wins on food and drink and culture and sights with your weighting.

Puerto Plata
45match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Oaxaca in July

28 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
80 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
13 hdaylight a day

Puerto Plata in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
67 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
OaxacaPuerto Plata

Where the figures come from

Puerto Plata 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. Oaxaca: 1961-1990 normals, Oaxaca, Oax. (1.1 km from centre). Puerto Plata: 1993-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Puerto Plata (15.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureOaxacaPuerto Plata
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Dominican Peso (DOP)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB110 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-4
Emergency number911911
Elevation1,555 m34 m
Main airportXoxocotlán International Airport (OAX)7 km from centre14 non-stop destinationsGregorio Luperon International Airport (POP)13 km from centre16 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasureOaxacaPuerto Plata
City population258,913-
People per km²3,028-
Museums within 10 km101
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km20
Swim season, months above 21 °C-12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Oaxaca or Puerto Plata 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. 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. 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.