VacationSelector
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo
A cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan, San Juan
San JuanA cobbled street of painted houses in Old San Juan

Photos: Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; San Juan by Mohan Nannapaneni, Pexels License.

Puerto Escondido or San Juan?

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
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose San Juan for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on San Juan’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 Juan 84: San Juan leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Escondido 48, San Juan 66: San Juan leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Escondido 8, San Juan 64: San Juan leads by 56 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Escondido 45, San Juan 70: San Juan leads by 25 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Escondido 78, San Juan 74: Puerto Escondido leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Puerto Escondido 35, San Juan 52: San Juan leads by 17 points.
Good for families. Puerto Escondido 42, San Juan 58: San Juan leads by 16 points.
Getting around. Puerto Escondido 40, San Juan 38: Puerto Escondido leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Escondido 22, San Juan 50: San Juan leads by 28 points.
Affordability. Puerto Escondido 68, San Juan 38: Puerto Escondido leads by 30 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Escondido 12, San Juan 55: San Juan leads by 43 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Escondido 58, San Juan 40: Puerto Escondido leads by 18 points.
0255075100

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

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 Juan
Best match
57match

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

San Juan in July

32 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
153 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto EscondidoSan Juan

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 Juan: 1991-2020 normals, San Juan / Int., Puerto Rico (12.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto EscondidoSan Juan
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish, English
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-4
Emergency number911911
Elevation60 m3 m
Main airportPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinationsLuis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU)12 km from centre59 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days21 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto EscondidoSan Juan
City population29,903342,259
People per km²-2,847
Museums within 10 km018
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
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 San Juan 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.