VacationSelector
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo
The Botanical Building, Balboa Park, San Diego
San DiegoThe Botanical Building, Balboa Park

Photos: Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; San Diego by Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Puerto Escondido or San Diego?

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

  • prices
  • wellness
  • beaches

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

Choose San Diego for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on San Diego’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, San Diego 72: Puerto Escondido leads by 10 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Escondido 48, San Diego 62: San Diego leads by 14 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Escondido 8, San Diego 50: San Diego leads by 42 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Escondido 45, San Diego 48: San Diego leads by 3 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Escondido 78, San Diego 77: Puerto Escondido leads by 1 points.
Day trips. Puerto Escondido 35, San Diego 60: San Diego leads by 25 points.
Good for families. Puerto Escondido 42, San Diego 96: San Diego leads by 54 points.
Getting around. Puerto Escondido 40, San Diego 38: Puerto Escondido leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Escondido 22, San Diego 44: San Diego leads by 22 points.
Affordability. Puerto Escondido 68, San Diego 26: Puerto Escondido leads by 42 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Escondido 12, San Diego 56: San Diego leads by 44 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Escondido 58, San Diego 45: Puerto Escondido leads by 13 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Escondido and San Diego.

Your match

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

Puerto Escondido
45match

Wins on prices and wellness with your weighting.

San Diego
Best match
56match

Wins on families 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

San Diego in July

24 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
2 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
20 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto EscondidoSan Diego

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. Puerto Escondido: 1991-2020 normals, Puerto Angel, Oax. (65.6 km from centre). San Diego: 1991-2020 normals, San Diego International Airport (2.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto EscondidoSan Diego
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya-
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation60 m129 m
Main airportPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinationsSan Diego International Airport (SAN)3 km from centre87 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto EscondidoSan Diego
City population29,9031,386,932
People per km²-1,438
Museums within 10 km026
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months1 month

Where else could you go?

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