VacationSelector
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo
The Winchester Mystery House, San Jose
San JoseThe Winchester Mystery House

Photos: Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; San Jose by Roxanna Salceda, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Puerto Escondido or San Jose?

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
  • wellness

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

Choose San Jose for

  • day trips
  • culture and sights
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on San Jose’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 Jose 30: Puerto Escondido leads by 52 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Escondido 48, San Jose 56: San Jose leads by 8 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Escondido 8, San Jose 36: San Jose leads by 28 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Escondido 45, San Jose 33: Puerto Escondido leads by 12 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Escondido 78, San Jose 72: Puerto Escondido leads by 6 points.
Day trips. Puerto Escondido 35, San Jose 78: San Jose leads by 43 points.
Good for families. Puerto Escondido 42, San Jose 65: San Jose leads by 23 points.
Getting around. Puerto Escondido 40, San Jose 30: Puerto Escondido leads by 10 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Escondido 22, San Jose 48: San Jose leads by 26 points.
Affordability. Puerto Escondido 68, San Jose 20: Puerto Escondido leads by 48 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Escondido 12, San Jose 38: San Jose leads by 26 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Escondido 58, San Jose 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 San Jose.

Your match

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

Too close to call, level with your weighting

Puerto Escondido
45match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

San Jose
45match

Wins on day trips and culture and sights 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 Jose in July

27 °Cdaytime high
15 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
14 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto EscondidoSan Jose

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 Jose: 1991-2020 normals, San Jose / Santa Clara Trailer Village (8.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto EscondidoSan Jose
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 m25 m
Main airportPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinationsMineta San Jose International Airport (SJC)8 km from centre38 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto EscondidoSan Jose
City population29,9031,013,240
People per km²-2,167
Museums within 10 km019
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 San Jose 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.