VacationSelector
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art

Photos: Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Puerto Escondido or Santa Fe?

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 Santa Fe for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Fe’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, Santa Fe 5: Puerto Escondido leads by 77 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Escondido 48, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 14 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Escondido 8, Santa Fe 66: Santa Fe leads by 58 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Escondido 45, Santa Fe 22: Puerto Escondido leads by 23 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Escondido 78, Santa Fe 80: Santa Fe leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Puerto Escondido 35, Santa Fe 70: Santa Fe leads by 35 points.
Good for families. Puerto Escondido 42, Santa Fe 45: Santa Fe leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Puerto Escondido and Santa Fe are level on 40.
Shopping & style. Puerto Escondido 22, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 40 points.
Affordability. Puerto Escondido 68, Santa Fe 30: Puerto Escondido leads by 38 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Escondido 12, Santa Fe 55: Santa Fe leads by 43 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Escondido 58, Santa Fe 55: Puerto Escondido leads by 3 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Escondido and Santa Fe.

Your match

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

Puerto Escondido
45match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Santa Fe
Best match
49match

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

Santa Fe in July

31 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
60 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto EscondidoSanta Fe

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.

Santa Fe's station stands 199 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Santa Fe 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). Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto EscondidoSanta Fe
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya-
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation60 m2,134 m
Main airportPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinationsSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto EscondidoSanta Fe
City population29,90387,505
People per km²-645
Museums within 10 km010
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

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