VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
The old town below the fortress, Salzburg
SalzburgThe old town below the fortress

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Salzburg by Leonhard Niederwimmer, Pexels License.

Puerto Vallarta or Salzburg?

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
  • prices

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

Choose Salzburg for

  • live music and the arts
  • culture and sights
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Salzburg’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, Salzburg 35: Puerto Vallarta leads by 50 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, Salzburg 45: Puerto Vallarta leads by 17 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Salzburg 72: Salzburg leads by 44 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Salzburg 25: Puerto Vallarta leads by 41 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Salzburg 86: Salzburg leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, Salzburg 80: Salzburg leads by 25 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta and Salzburg are level on 65.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, Salzburg 72: Salzburg leads by 27 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Salzburg 48: Salzburg leads by 6 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, Salzburg 32: Puerto Vallarta leads by 28 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, Salzburg 80: Salzburg leads by 48 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, Salzburg 55: Salzburg leads by 3 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Vallarta and Salzburg.

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 Vallarta
56match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Salzburg
58match

Wins on live music and the arts 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

Salzburg in July

25 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
159 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
No seasea
16 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaSalzburg

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.

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. Salzburg: 1991-2020 normals, Salzburg (3.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaSalzburg
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaGerman, Austrian Sign Language
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 m424 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsSalzburg Airport (SZG)3 km from centre64 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaSalzburg
City population224,166155,021
People per km²4,3112,360
Museums within 10 km238
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km13
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Puerto Vallarta or Salzburg 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.