VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
The adobe New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe
Santa FeThe adobe New Mexico Museum of Art

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Santa Fe by dconvertini, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.

Puerto Vallarta or Santa Fe?

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 Santa Fe for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Santa Fe’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, Santa Fe 5: Puerto Vallarta leads by 80 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta and Santa Fe are level on 62.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Santa Fe 66: Santa Fe leads by 38 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Santa Fe 22: Puerto Vallarta leads by 44 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Santa Fe 80: Santa Fe leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, Santa Fe 70: Santa Fe leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, Santa Fe 45: Puerto Vallarta leads by 20 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, Santa Fe 40: Puerto Vallarta leads by 5 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Santa Fe 62: Santa Fe leads by 20 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, Santa Fe 30: Puerto Vallarta leads by 30 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, Santa Fe 55: Santa Fe leads by 23 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, Santa Fe 55: Santa Fe 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 Santa Fe.

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.

Santa Fe
49match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts 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

Santa Fe in July

31 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
60 mmrain in the month
No seasea
14 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaSanta Fe

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.

Santa Fe's station stands 199 m below the city centre, so the centre is likely a little cooler than the figures say.

Santa Fe 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.

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. Santa Fe: 1991-2020 normals, Santa Fe / Cieneguilla (12.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaSanta Fe
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya-
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-7, UTC-6 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation101 m2,134 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsSanta Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)12 km from centre5 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaSanta Fe
City population224,16687,505
People per km²4,311645
Museums within 10 km210
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 Santa Fe 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. 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.