VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
La Concha beach and Monte Urgull, San Sebastian
San SebastianLa Concha beach and Monte Urgull

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; San Sebastian by Guérin Nicolas, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Puerto Vallarta or San Sebastian?

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

  • prices
  • nightlife
  • beaches

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

Choose San Sebastian for

  • getting around
  • food and drink
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on San Sebastian’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, San Sebastian 68: Puerto Vallarta leads by 17 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, San Sebastian 88: San Sebastian leads by 26 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, San Sebastian 52: San Sebastian leads by 24 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, San Sebastian 44: Puerto Vallarta leads by 22 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, San Sebastian 72: Puerto Vallarta leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, San Sebastian 80: San Sebastian leads by 25 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, San Sebastian 66: San Sebastian leads by 1 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, San Sebastian 80: San Sebastian leads by 35 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, San Sebastian 40: Puerto Vallarta leads by 2 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, San Sebastian 32: Puerto Vallarta leads by 28 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, San Sebastian 45: San Sebastian leads by 13 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, San Sebastian 50: Puerto Vallarta leads by 2 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Vallarta and San Sebastian.

Your match

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

Puerto Vallarta
56match

Wins on prices and nightlife with your weighting.

San Sebastian
Best match
60match

Wins on getting around and food and drink 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

San Sebastian in July

22 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
92 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
21 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaSan Sebastian

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.

San Sebastian's station stands 252 m above the city centre, so the centre is likely a little warmer than the figures say.

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. San Sebastian: 1991-2020 normals, San Sebastian / Igueldo (6.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaSan Sebastian
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish
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 m6 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsSan Sebastián Airport (EAS)16 km from centre11 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaSan Sebastian
City population224,166189,866
People per km²4,3113,118
Museums within 10 km214
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km13
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months2 months

Where else could you go?

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