VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
Hanok houses in Bukchon, Seoul
SeoulHanok houses in Bukchon

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Seoul by 거열 박, Pexels License.

Puerto Vallarta or Seoul?

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
  • nature and the outdoors

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

Choose Seoul for

  • culture and sights
  • shopping
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Seoul’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, Seoul 18: Puerto Vallarta leads by 67 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, Seoul 84: Seoul leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Seoul 75: Seoul leads by 47 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Seoul 84: Seoul leads by 18 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Seoul 75: Puerto Vallarta leads by 1 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, Seoul 77: Seoul leads by 22 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, Seoul 80: Seoul leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, Seoul 87: Seoul leads by 42 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Seoul 85: Seoul leads by 43 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, Seoul 50: Puerto Vallarta leads by 10 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, Seoul 63: Seoul leads by 31 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, Seoul 75: Seoul leads by 23 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Vallarta and Seoul.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Puerto Vallarta
56match

Wins on beaches and prices with your weighting.

Seoul
Best match
71match

Wins on culture and sights and shopping 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

Seoul in July

29 °Cdaytime high
22 °Cnight-time low
422 mmrain in the month
4 hsunshine a day
21 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300400500JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaSeoul

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. Seoul: 1991-2020 normals, Seoul (2.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaSeoul
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaKorean, Korean Sign Language
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Won (KRW)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCF220 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+9
Emergency number911Police 112, ambulance 119, fire 119
Elevation101 m38 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsIncheon International Airport (ICN)49 km from centre162 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days18 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaSeoul
City population224,1669,668,465
People per km²4,31115,973
Museums within 10 km281
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km15
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months2 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Puerto Vallarta or Seoul 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.