VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
The Space Needle behind Pier 70, Seattle
SeattleThe Space Needle behind Pier 70

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Seattle by Caio, Pexels License.

Puerto Vallarta or Seattle?

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
  • prices
  • wellness

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

Choose Seattle for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Seattle’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, Seattle 30: Puerto Vallarta leads by 55 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, Seattle 66: Seattle leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Seattle 50: Seattle leads by 22 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Seattle 55: Puerto Vallarta leads by 11 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Seattle 87: Seattle leads by 11 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta and Seattle are level on 55.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, Seattle 64: Puerto Vallarta leads by 1 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, Seattle 60: Seattle leads by 15 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Seattle 52: Seattle leads by 10 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, Seattle 22: Puerto Vallarta leads by 38 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, Seattle 70: Seattle leads by 38 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, Seattle 40: Puerto Vallarta leads by 12 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Vallarta and Seattle.

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 prices with your weighting.

Seattle
54match

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
30 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Seattle in July

25 °Cdaytime high
14 °Cnight-time low
15 mmrain in the month
12 °Csea
16 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaSeattle

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. Seattle: 1991-2020 normals, Seattle-Tacoma Airport (17.3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaSeattle
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya-
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)US Dollar (USD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC-8, UTC-7 in summer
Emergency number911911
Elevation101 m40 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsSeattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA)18 km from centre135 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaSeattle
City population224,166737,015
People per km²4,3111,996
Museums within 10 km227
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 Seattle 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.