VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
Palms on a white beach at Cap Cana, Punta Cana
Punta CanaPalms on a white beach at Cap Cana

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Punta Cana by Mary Mark Ockerbloom, CC0.

Puerto Vallarta or Punta Cana?

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 Vallarta for

  • food and drink
  • getting around
  • nightlife

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

Choose Punta Cana for

  • beaches
  • families

What lies behind each score is written up on Punta Cana’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 Vallarta 85, Punta Cana 94: Punta Cana leads by 9 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, Punta Cana 30: Puerto Vallarta leads by 32 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Punta Cana 8: Puerto Vallarta leads by 20 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Punta Cana 40: Puerto Vallarta leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Punta Cana 52: Puerto Vallarta leads by 24 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, Punta Cana 35: Puerto Vallarta leads by 20 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, Punta Cana 68: Punta Cana leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, Punta Cana 15: Puerto Vallarta leads by 30 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Punta Cana 30: Puerto Vallarta leads by 12 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, Punta Cana 44: Puerto Vallarta leads by 16 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, Punta Cana 15: Puerto Vallarta leads by 17 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta and Punta Cana are level on 52.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Vallarta and Punta Cana.

Your match

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

Puerto Vallarta
Best match
56match

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

Punta Cana
40match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

Puerto Vallarta in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
209 mmrain in the month
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Punta Cana in July

32 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
96 mmrain in the month
28 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaPunta Cana

Where the figures come from

Puerto Vallarta 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.

Punta Cana 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 Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km. Punta Cana: 1993-2020 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Punta Cana (0.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaPunta Cana
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Dominican Peso (DOP)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB110 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-4
Emergency number911911
Elevation101 m28 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsPunta Cana International Airport (PUJ)1 km from centre93 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaPunta Cana
City population224,166138,919
People per km²4,311292
Museums within 10 km20
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 Vallarta or Punta Cana somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. 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. Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.