VacationSelector
The Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock, Petra
PetraThe Treasury, Al-Khazneh, cut into the rock
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills

Photos: Petra by Yasir Gürbüz, Pexels License; Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Petra or Puerto Vallarta?

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 Petra for

  • culture and sights
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Puerto Vallarta for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • food and drink

What lies behind each score is written up on Puerto Vallarta’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. Petra 5, Puerto Vallarta 85: Puerto Vallarta leads by 80 points.
Food & drink. Petra 22, Puerto Vallarta 62: Puerto Vallarta leads by 40 points.
Culture & sights. Petra 85, Puerto Vallarta 28: Petra leads by 57 points.
Nightlife. Petra 5, Puerto Vallarta 66: Puerto Vallarta leads by 61 points.
Nature & outdoors. Petra 78, Puerto Vallarta 76: Petra leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Petra 30, Puerto Vallarta 55: Puerto Vallarta leads by 25 points.
Good for families. Petra 25, Puerto Vallarta 65: Puerto Vallarta leads by 40 points.
Getting around. Petra 25, Puerto Vallarta 45: Puerto Vallarta leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Petra 18, Puerto Vallarta 42: Puerto Vallarta leads by 24 points.
Affordability. Petra 45, Puerto Vallarta 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 15 points.
Live music & performing arts. Petra 10, Puerto Vallarta 32: Puerto Vallarta leads by 22 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Petra 28, Puerto Vallarta 52: Puerto Vallarta leads by 24 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Petra and Puerto Vallarta.

Your match

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

Petra
31match

Wins on culture and sights and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Puerto Vallarta
Best match
56match

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.

Petra in July

35 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Puerto Vallarta in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
209 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
PetraPuerto Vallarta

Where the figures come from

Petra's temperatures are measured 34 km from the centre, at Ma'An.

Petra's station stands 219 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

Petra 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.

Puerto 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. Petra: 1991-2020 normals, Ma'An (33.9 km from centre). Puerto Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasurePetraPuerto Vallarta
Official languageArabicSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyJordanian Dinar (JOD)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsBCFGJ230 V, 50 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+3UTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation850 m101 m
Main airportKing Hussein International Airport (AQJ)90 km from centre5 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year-9 days

By the numbers

MeasurePetraPuerto Vallarta
City population-224,166
People per km²-4,311
Museums within 10 km22
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
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 Petra or Puerto Vallarta 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). 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.