VacationSelector
Kek Lok Si temple on the hillside, Penang
PenangKek Lok Si temple on the hillside
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo

Photos: Penang by Supanut Arunoprayote, CC BY 4.0, cropped; Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Penang or Puerto Escondido?

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 Penang for

  • culture and sights
  • food and drink
  • shopping

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

Choose Puerto Escondido for

  • beaches
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

What lies behind each score is written up on Puerto Escondido’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. Penang 44, Puerto Escondido 82: Puerto Escondido leads by 38 points.
Food & drink. Penang 86, Puerto Escondido 48: Penang leads by 38 points.
Culture & sights. Penang 70, Puerto Escondido 8: Penang leads by 62 points.
Nightlife. Penang 40, Puerto Escondido 45: Puerto Escondido leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. Penang 55, Puerto Escondido 78: Puerto Escondido leads by 23 points.
Day trips. Penang 42, Puerto Escondido 35: Penang leads by 7 points.
Good for families. Penang 52, Puerto Escondido 42: Penang leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Penang and Puerto Escondido are level on 40.
Shopping & style. Penang 42, Puerto Escondido 22: Penang leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Penang 78, Puerto Escondido 68: Penang leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. Penang 30, Puerto Escondido 12: Penang leads by 18 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Penang 42, Puerto Escondido 58: Puerto Escondido leads by 16 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Penang and Puerto Escondido.

Your match

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

Penang
Best match
52match

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

Puerto Escondido
45match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Penang in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
189 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
12 hdaylight a day

Puerto Escondido in July

33 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
116 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
PenangPuerto Escondido

Where the figures come from

Puerto Escondido's temperatures are measured 66 km from the centre, at Puerto Angel, Oax..

Puerto Escondido 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. Penang: 1991-2020 normals, Penang / Bayan Lepas (14.5 km from centre). Puerto Escondido: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (65.6 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePenangPuerto Escondido
Official languageMalaySpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyMalaysian Ringgit (MYR)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsG240 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideLeftRight
Time zoneUTC+8UTC-6
Emergency number999911
Elevation4 m60 m
Main airportPenang International Airport (PEN)14 km from centre32 non-stop destinationsPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-9 days

By the numbers

MeasurePenangPuerto Escondido
City population794,31329,903
Museums within 10 km90
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 Penang or Puerto Escondido 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. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). 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. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). 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.