VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
São Paulo Cathedral, Sao Paulo
Sao PauloSão Paulo Cathedral

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Sao Paulo by Webysther Nunes, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Puerto Vallarta or Sao Paulo?

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
  • nature and the outdoors
  • wellness

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

Choose Sao Paulo for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Sao Paulo’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, Sao Paulo 42: Puerto Vallarta leads by 43 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, Sao Paulo 84: Sao Paulo leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Sao Paulo 60: Sao Paulo leads by 32 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Sao Paulo 86: Sao Paulo leads by 20 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Sao Paulo 48: Puerto Vallarta leads by 28 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, Sao Paulo 47: Puerto Vallarta leads by 8 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, Sao Paulo 52: Puerto Vallarta leads by 13 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, Sao Paulo 44: Puerto Vallarta leads by 1 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Sao Paulo 70: Sao Paulo leads by 28 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, Sao Paulo 62: Sao Paulo leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, Sao Paulo 76: Sao Paulo leads by 44 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, Sao Paulo 25: Puerto Vallarta leads by 27 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Vallarta and Sao Paulo.

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 nature and the outdoors with your weighting.

Sao Paulo
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

Sao Paulo in July

23 °Cdaytime high
13 °Cnight-time low
53 mmrain in the month
6 hsunshine a day
No seasea
11 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaSao Paulo

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. Sao Paulo: 1991-2020 normals, Sao Paulo (5.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaSao Paulo
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaPortuguese
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Brazilian Real (BRL)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCN60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-3
Emergency number911Police 190, ambulance 192, fire 193
Elevation101 m760 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsSão Paulo/Guarulhos–Governor André Franco Montoro International Airport (GRU)21 km from centre104 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaSao Paulo
City population224,16611,451,999
People per km²4,3117,519
Museums within 10 km290
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 Sao Paulo 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.