VacationSelector
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo
The lighthouse and harbour at Sharm el-Sheikh, Sharm el-Sheikh
Sharm el-SheikhThe lighthouse and harbour at Sharm el-Sheikh

Photos: Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Sharm el-Sheikh by Tanya Dedyukhina, CC BY 3.0, cropped.

Puerto Escondido or Sharm el-Sheikh?

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

  • food and drink
  • getting around
  • wellness

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

Choose Sharm el-Sheikh for

  • families
  • prices
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Sharm el-Sheikh’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, Sharm el-Sheikh 87: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 5 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Escondido 48, Sharm el-Sheikh 30: Puerto Escondido leads by 18 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Escondido 8, Sharm el-Sheikh 12: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 4 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Escondido 45, Sharm el-Sheikh 42: Puerto Escondido leads by 3 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Escondido 78, Sharm el-Sheikh 82: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Puerto Escondido 35, Sharm el-Sheikh 30: Puerto Escondido leads by 5 points.
Good for families. Puerto Escondido 42, Sharm el-Sheikh 62: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 20 points.
Getting around. Puerto Escondido 40, Sharm el-Sheikh 22: Puerto Escondido leads by 18 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Escondido 22, Sharm el-Sheikh 25: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 3 points.
Affordability. Puerto Escondido 68, Sharm el-Sheikh 74: Sharm el-Sheikh leads by 6 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Escondido 12, Sharm el-Sheikh 10: Puerto Escondido leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Escondido 58, Sharm el-Sheikh 50: Puerto Escondido leads by 8 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Escondido and Sharm el-Sheikh.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Puerto Escondido
45match

Wins on food and drink and getting around with your weighting.

Sharm el-Sheikh
44match

Wins on families and prices 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

Sharm el-Sheikh in July

38 °Cdaytime high
28 °Cnight-time low
0 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto EscondidoSharm el-Sheikh

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.

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

Before you go

MeasurePuerto EscondidoSharm el-Sheikh
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaArabic
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Egyptian Pound (EGP)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number911Police 122, ambulance 123, fire 180
Elevation60 m1 m
Main airportPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinationsSharm El Sheikh International Airport (SSH)16 km from centre112 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto EscondidoSharm el-Sheikh
City population29,90373,000
Museums within 10 km01
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
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 Sharm el-Sheikh 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.