VacationSelector
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo
Sugarloaf Mountain above the boats in Botafogo Bay, Rio de Janeiro
Rio de JaneiroSugarloaf Mountain above the boats in Botafogo Bay

Photos: Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Rio de Janeiro by Arne Müseler, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, cropped.

Puerto Escondido or Rio de Janeiro?

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 Puerto Escondido for

  • wellness
  • prices

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

Choose Rio de Janeiro for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • nightlife

What lies behind each score is written up on Rio de Janeiro’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. Puerto Escondido 82, Rio de Janeiro 92: Rio de Janeiro leads by 10 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Escondido 48, Rio de Janeiro 62: Rio de Janeiro leads by 14 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Escondido 8, Rio de Janeiro 68: Rio de Janeiro leads by 60 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Escondido 45, Rio de Janeiro 80: Rio de Janeiro leads by 35 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Escondido 78, Rio de Janeiro 90: Rio de Janeiro leads by 12 points.
Day trips. Puerto Escondido 35, Rio de Janeiro 50: Rio de Janeiro leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Puerto Escondido 42, Rio de Janeiro 50: Rio de Janeiro leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Puerto Escondido 40, Rio de Janeiro 44: Rio de Janeiro leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Escondido 22, Rio de Janeiro 50: Rio de Janeiro leads by 28 points.
Affordability. Puerto Escondido 68, Rio de Janeiro 60: Puerto Escondido leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Escondido 12, Rio de Janeiro 66: Rio de Janeiro leads by 54 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Escondido 58, Rio de Janeiro 30: Puerto Escondido leads by 28 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Escondido and Rio de Janeiro.

Your match

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

Puerto Escondido
45match

Wins on wellness and prices with your weighting.

Rio de Janeiro
Best match
62match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

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

Rio de Janeiro in July

24 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
45 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
22 °Csea
11 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto EscondidoRio de Janeiro

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.

Rio de Janeiro 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. Puerto Escondido: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (65.6 km from centre). Rio de Janeiro: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasurePuerto EscondidoRio de Janeiro
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaPortuguese
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Brazilian Real (BRL)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCN60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-3
Emergency number911Police 190, ambulance 192, fire 193
Elevation60 m31 m
Main airportPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinationsRio de Janeiro Galeão – Tom Jobim International Airport (GIG)12 km from centre54 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto EscondidoRio de Janeiro
City population29,9036,211,223
People per km²-4,930
Museums within 10 km069
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km03
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 Puerto Escondido or Rio de Janeiro 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). 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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.