VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
The old Bath House in the Government Gardens, Rotorua
RotoruaThe old Bath House in the Government Gardens

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Rotorua by W. Bulach, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Puerto Vallarta or Rotorua?

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
  • nightlife
  • food and drink

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

Choose Rotorua for

  • wellness
  • culture and sights
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Rotorua’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, Rotorua 33: Puerto Vallarta leads by 52 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, Rotorua 33: Puerto Vallarta leads by 29 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Rotorua 38: Rotorua leads by 10 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Rotorua 14: Puerto Vallarta leads by 52 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Rotorua 86: Rotorua leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, Rotorua 45: Puerto Vallarta leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, Rotorua 68: Rotorua leads by 3 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, Rotorua 30: Puerto Vallarta leads by 15 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Rotorua 22: Puerto Vallarta leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, Rotorua 36: Puerto Vallarta leads by 24 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, Rotorua 30: Puerto Vallarta leads by 2 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, Rotorua 86: Rotorua leads by 34 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Vallarta and Rotorua.

Your match

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

Puerto Vallarta
Best match
56match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Rotorua
43match

Wins on wellness and culture and sights 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

Rotorua in July

11 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
113 mmrain in the month
15 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaRotorua

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.

Rotorua 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 Vallarta: 1991-2020 normals, TerraClimate 4 km grid at the town, no weather station within 90 km. Rotorua: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaRotorua
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaEnglish, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency number911111
Elevation101 m280 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsRotorua Regional Airport (ROT)7 km from centre3 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaRotorua
City population224,16658,500
People per km²4,31122
Museums within 10 km21
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 Vallarta or Rotorua 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. 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 2026-11-01. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.