VacationSelector
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo
The old Bath House in the Government Gardens, Rotorua
RotoruaThe old Bath House in the Government Gardens

Photos: Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Rotorua by W. Bulach, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Puerto Escondido or Rotorua?

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

  • beaches
  • prices
  • nightlife

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

Choose Rotorua for

  • culture and sights
  • wellness
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Rotorua’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, Rotorua 33: Puerto Escondido leads by 49 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Escondido 48, Rotorua 33: Puerto Escondido leads by 15 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Escondido 8, Rotorua 38: Rotorua leads by 30 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Escondido 45, Rotorua 14: Puerto Escondido leads by 31 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Escondido 78, Rotorua 86: Rotorua leads by 8 points.
Day trips. Puerto Escondido 35, Rotorua 45: Rotorua leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Puerto Escondido 42, Rotorua 68: Rotorua leads by 26 points.
Getting around. Puerto Escondido 40, Rotorua 30: Puerto Escondido leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Escondido and Rotorua are level on 22.
Affordability. Puerto Escondido 68, Rotorua 36: Puerto Escondido leads by 32 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Escondido 12, Rotorua 30: Rotorua leads by 18 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Escondido 58, Rotorua 86: Rotorua leads by 28 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Escondido and Rotorua.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Puerto Escondido
45match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Rotorua
43match

Wins on culture and sights and wellness 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

Rotorua in July

11 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
113 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
15 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto EscondidoRotorua

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.

Rotorua 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). Rotorua: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasurePuerto EscondidoRotorua
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaEnglish, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency number911111
Elevation60 m280 m
Main airportPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinationsRotorua Regional Airport (ROT)7 km from centre3 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto EscondidoRotorua
City population29,90358,500
People per km²-22
Museums within 10 km01
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Puerto Escondido or Rotorua 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.