VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
Erasmus Bridge and the skyline, Rotterdam
RotterdamErasmus Bridge and the skyline

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Rotterdam by Bas Geerlings, Pexels License.

Puerto Vallarta or Rotterdam?

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
  • nature and the outdoors
  • prices

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

Choose Rotterdam for

  • getting around
  • culture and sights
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Rotterdam’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, Rotterdam 27: Puerto Vallarta leads by 58 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, Rotterdam 52: Puerto Vallarta leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Rotterdam 58: Rotterdam leads by 30 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Rotterdam 52: Puerto Vallarta leads by 14 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Rotterdam 44: Puerto Vallarta leads by 32 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, Rotterdam 85: Rotterdam leads by 30 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, Rotterdam 66: Rotterdam leads by 1 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, Rotterdam 78: Rotterdam leads by 33 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Rotterdam 55: Rotterdam leads by 13 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, Rotterdam 38: Puerto Vallarta leads by 22 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, Rotterdam 58: Rotterdam leads by 26 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, Rotterdam 42: Puerto Vallarta leads by 10 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Vallarta and Rotterdam.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 1 point apart

Puerto Vallarta
56match

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

Rotterdam
55match

Wins on getting around 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
No recordsunshine a day
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Rotterdam in July

22 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
91 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
18 °Csea
16 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaRotterdam

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.

Rotterdam 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.

Rotterdam's sunshine is measured 52 km from the centre, at De Bilt.

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. Rotterdam: 1993-2020 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Rotterdam Airport Zestienhoven (3.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaRotterdam
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaDutch
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation101 m10 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsRotterdam The Hague Airport (RTM)5 km from centre53 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaRotterdam
City population224,166664,311
People per km²4,3112,080
Museums within 10 km240
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km15
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 Rotterdam 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.