VacationSelector
Playa Manzanillo, Puerto Escondido
Puerto EscondidoPlaya Manzanillo
Rowing boats below the ghats in the morning light, Varanasi
VaranasiRowing boats below the ghats in the morning light

Photos: Puerto Escondido by theklan, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped; Varanasi by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Puerto Escondido or Varanasi?

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
  • nature and the outdoors
  • families

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

Choose Varanasi for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Varanasi’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, Varanasi 4: Puerto Escondido leads by 78 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Escondido 48, Varanasi 55: Varanasi leads by 7 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Escondido 8, Varanasi 80: Varanasi leads by 72 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Escondido 45, Varanasi 10: Puerto Escondido leads by 35 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Escondido 78, Varanasi 18: Puerto Escondido leads by 60 points.
Day trips. Puerto Escondido 35, Varanasi 42: Varanasi leads by 7 points.
Good for families. Puerto Escondido 42, Varanasi 5: Puerto Escondido leads by 37 points.
Getting around. Puerto Escondido 40, Varanasi 28: Puerto Escondido leads by 12 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Escondido 22, Varanasi 55: Varanasi leads by 33 points.
Affordability. Puerto Escondido 68, Varanasi 92: Varanasi leads by 24 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Escondido 12, Varanasi 58: Varanasi leads by 46 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Escondido 58, Varanasi 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 Varanasi.

Your match

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

Puerto Escondido
Best match
45match

Wins on beaches and nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Varanasi
40match

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

Varanasi in July

35 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
249 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°50°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto EscondidoVaranasi

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.

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

Before you go

MeasurePuerto EscondidoVaranasi
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaHindi, English
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Indian Rupee (INR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCM230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+5:30
Emergency number911108 or 112
Elevation60 m76 m
Main airportPuerto Escondido International Airport (PXM)2 km from centre10 non-stop destinationsLal Bahadur Shastri International Airport (VNS)21 km from centre16 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days-

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto EscondidoVaranasi
City population29,9031,198,491
People per km²-14,598
Museums within 10 km02
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km01
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 Varanasi 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.