VacationSelector
Santo Domingo church behind agaves, Oaxaca
OaxacaSanto Domingo church behind agaves
A cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan, San Juan
San JuanA cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan

Photos: Oaxaca by Öskr Rck, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; San Juan by Mohan Nannapaneni, Pexels License.

Oaxaca 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 Oaxaca for

  • prices
  • food and drink
  • getting around

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

Choose San Juan for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • families

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. Oaxaca 5, San Juan 84: San Juan leads by 79 points.
Food & drink. Oaxaca 84, San Juan 66: Oaxaca leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Oaxaca 74, San Juan 64: Oaxaca leads by 10 points.
Nightlife. Oaxaca 40, San Juan 70: San Juan leads by 30 points.
Nature & outdoors. Oaxaca 62, San Juan 74: San Juan leads by 12 points.
Day trips. Oaxaca 65, San Juan 52: Oaxaca leads by 13 points.
Good for families. Oaxaca 40, San Juan 58: San Juan leads by 18 points.
Getting around. Oaxaca 55, San Juan 38: Oaxaca leads by 17 points.
Shopping & style. Oaxaca 62, San Juan 50: Oaxaca leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Oaxaca 77, San Juan 38: Oaxaca leads by 39 points.
Live music & performing arts. Oaxaca 38, San Juan 55: San Juan leads by 17 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Oaxaca 50, San Juan 40: Oaxaca leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Oaxaca and San Juan.

Your match

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

Oaxaca
54match

Wins on prices and food and drink with your weighting.

San Juan
Best match
57match

Wins on beaches 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.

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

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

050100150200JFMAMJJASOND
OaxacaSan Juan

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Oaxaca: 1961-1990 normals, Oaxaca, Oax. (1.1 km from centre). San Juan: 1991-2020 normals, San Juan / Int., Puerto Rico (12.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureOaxacaSan 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
Elevation1,555 m3 m
Main airportXoxocotlán International Airport (OAX)7 km from centre14 non-stop destinationsLuis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU)12 km from centre59 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days21 days

By the numbers

MeasureOaxacaSan Juan
City population258,913342,259
People per km²3,0282,847
Museums within 10 km1018
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km21
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 San Juan 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.