VacationSelector
The Fortaleza San Felipe, Puerto Plata
Puerto PlataThe Fortaleza San Felipe
The main beach with the green hills behind, Sayulita
SayulitaThe main beach with the green hills behind

Photos: Puerto Plata by CareAhLine, CC0; Sayulita by Luisalvaz, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Puerto Plata or Sayulita?

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 Plata for

  • culture and sights
  • prices
  • families

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

Choose Sayulita for

  • wellness
  • getting around
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Sayulita’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 Plata and Sayulita are level on 80.
Food & drink. Puerto Plata 40, Sayulita 42: Sayulita leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Plata 35, Sayulita 7: Puerto Plata leads by 28 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Plata 38, Sayulita 33: Puerto Plata leads by 5 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Plata 68, Sayulita 72: Sayulita leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Puerto Plata 48, Sayulita 42: Puerto Plata leads by 6 points.
Good for families. Puerto Plata 57, Sayulita 42: Puerto Plata leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Puerto Plata 30, Sayulita 48: Sayulita leads by 18 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Plata 30, Sayulita 33: Sayulita leads by 3 points.
Affordability. Puerto Plata 64, Sayulita 45: Puerto Plata leads by 19 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Plata 18, Sayulita 12: Puerto Plata leads by 6 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Plata 35, Sayulita 58: Sayulita leads by 23 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Plata and Sayulita.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Puerto Plata
45match

Wins on culture and sights and prices with your weighting.

Sayulita
43match

Wins on wellness and getting around with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Puerto Plata in July

33 °Cdaytime high
23 °Cnight-time low
67 mmrain in the month
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Sayulita in July

29 °Cdaytime high
27 °Cnight-time low
342 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto PlataSayulita

Where the figures come from

Puerto Plata 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.

Sayulita 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 Plata: 1993-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Puerto Plata (15.3 km from centre). Sayulita: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasurePuerto PlataSayulita
Official languageSpanishSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya
CurrencyDominican Peso (DOP)Mexican Peso (MXN)
SocketsAB110 V, 60 HzAB127 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-4UTC-6
Emergency number911911
Elevation34 m2 m
Main airportGregorio Luperon International Airport (POP)13 km from centre16 non-stop destinationsPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)29 km from centre52 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days9 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto PlataSayulita
City population-3,390
Museums within 10 km10
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 Plata or Sayulita 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). 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. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.