VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
The terrace on Cerro Santa Lucía, Santiago
SantiagoThe terrace on Cerro Santa Lucía

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Santiago by Rjcastillo, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Puerto Vallarta or Santiago?

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
  • wellness
  • families

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

Choose Santiago for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Santiago’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 12: Puerto Vallarta leads by 73 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, Santiago 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Santiago 52: Santiago leads by 24 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Santiago 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Santiago 83: Santiago leads by 7 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, Santiago 70: Santiago leads by 15 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, Santiago 57: Puerto Vallarta leads by 8 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, Santiago 68: Santiago leads by 23 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Santiago 52: Santiago leads by 10 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, Santiago 58: Puerto Vallarta leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, Santiago 55: Santiago leads by 23 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, Santiago 37: Puerto Vallarta leads by 15 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Vallarta and Santiago.

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 wellness with your weighting.

Santiago
55match

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 in July

14 °Cdaytime high
4 °Cnight-time low
52 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
No seasea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaSantiago

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: 1991-2020 normals, Santiago Q. Normal (3.1 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaSantiago
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaSpanish
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Chilean Peso (CLP)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCL220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-4, UTC-3 in summer
Emergency number911Police 133/134, ambulance 131, fire 132
Elevation101 m575 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsComodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport (SCL)14 km from centre67 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days16 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaSantiago
City population224,1666,257,516
People per km²4,3117,468
Museums within 10 km254
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 Santiago 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 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.