VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
The cathedral above the old town, Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de CompostelaThe cathedral above the old town

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Santiago de Compostela by Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez (Lmbuga), CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Puerto Vallarta or Santiago de Compostela?

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
  • families
  • nightlife

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

Choose Santiago de Compostela for

  • culture and sights
  • getting around
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Santiago de Compostela’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, Santiago de Compostela 32: Puerto Vallarta leads by 53 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, Santiago de Compostela 68: Santiago de Compostela leads by 6 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Santiago de Compostela 70: Santiago de Compostela leads by 42 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Santiago de Compostela 45: Puerto Vallarta leads by 21 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Santiago de Compostela 62: Puerto Vallarta leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, Santiago de Compostela 72: Santiago de Compostela leads by 17 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, Santiago de Compostela 42: Puerto Vallarta leads by 23 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, Santiago de Compostela 70: Santiago de Compostela leads by 25 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Santiago de Compostela 35: Puerto Vallarta leads by 7 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, Santiago de Compostela 64: Santiago de Compostela leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, Santiago de Compostela 40: Santiago de Compostela leads by 8 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, Santiago de Compostela 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 Santiago de Compostela.

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 families with your weighting.

Santiago de Compostela
54match

Wins on culture and sights and getting around 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

Santiago de Compostela in July

25 °Cdaytime high
13 °Cnight-time low
41 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
17 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaSantiago de Compostela

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. Santiago de Compostela: 1991-2020 normals, Santiago / Labacolla (8.4 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaSantiago de Compostela
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 m260 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsSantiago-Rosalía de Castro Airport (SCQ)10 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaSantiago de Compostela
City population224,166100,965
People per km²4,311459
Museums within 10 km26
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12
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 Santiago de Compostela 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.