VacationSelector
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo
A painted funicular on the hillside, Valparaiso
ValparaisoA painted funicular on the hillside

Photos: Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Valparaiso by Maclemo, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Puerto Escondido or Valparaiso?

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
  • wellness
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Valparaiso for

  • culture and sights
  • day trips
  • live music and the arts

What lies behind each score is written up on Valparaiso’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, Valparaiso 36: Puerto Escondido leads by 46 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Escondido 48, Valparaiso 50: Valparaiso leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Escondido 8, Valparaiso 62: Valparaiso leads by 54 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Escondido 45, Valparaiso 56: Valparaiso leads by 11 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Escondido 78, Valparaiso 60: Puerto Escondido leads by 18 points.
Day trips. Puerto Escondido 35, Valparaiso 63: Valparaiso leads by 28 points.
Good for families. Puerto Escondido 42, Valparaiso 33: Puerto Escondido leads by 9 points.
Getting around. Puerto Escondido 40, Valparaiso 44: Valparaiso leads by 4 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Escondido 22, Valparaiso 30: Valparaiso leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Puerto Escondido 68, Valparaiso 60: Puerto Escondido leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Escondido 12, Valparaiso 38: Valparaiso leads by 26 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Escondido 58, Valparaiso 18: Puerto Escondido leads by 40 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Escondido and Valparaiso.

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 beaches and wellness with your weighting.

Valparaiso
46match

Wins on culture and sights and day trips 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

Valparaiso in July

15 °Cdaytime high
7 °Cnight-time low
71 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
13 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto EscondidoValparaiso

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.

Valparaiso 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). Valparaiso: 2010-2025 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Viña Del Mar / Montemar (17 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto EscondidoValparaiso
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Chilean Peso (CLP)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCL220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-4, UTC-3 in summer
Emergency number911Police 133/134, ambulance 131, fire 132
Elevation60 m21 m
Main airportPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinationsComodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport (SCL)87 km from centre67 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto EscondidoValparaiso
City population29,903296,655
People per km²-6,180
Museums within 10 km017
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
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 Valparaiso 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.