VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
The Colosseum, Rome
RomeThe Colosseum

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Rome by Tournasol7, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Puerto Vallarta or Rome?

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

  • beaches
  • prices
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Rome for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Rome’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, Rome 50: Puerto Vallarta leads by 35 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, Rome 82: Rome leads by 20 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Rome 99: Rome leads by 71 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Rome 58: Puerto Vallarta leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Rome 58: Puerto Vallarta leads by 18 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, Rome 92: Rome leads by 37 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, Rome 50: Puerto Vallarta leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, Rome 60: Rome leads by 15 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Rome 72: Rome leads by 30 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, Rome 38: Puerto Vallarta leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, Rome 68: Rome leads by 36 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, Rome 40: Puerto Vallarta leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Vallarta and Rome.

Your match

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

Puerto Vallarta
56match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Rome
Best match
64match

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 Vallarta in July

34 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
209 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Rome in July

31 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
21 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaRome

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.

Rome's sunshine is measured 31 km from the centre, at Vigna Di Valle.

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. Rome: 1991-2020 normals, Roma / Ciampino (15.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaRome
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaItalian
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation101 m21 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsRome–Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci International Airport (FCO)23 km from centre242 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaRome
City population224,1662,748,109
People per km²4,3112,135
Museums within 10 km2178
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km17
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months5 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Puerto Vallarta or Rome 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. Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. 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.