VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
Cliff-top hotels above the harbour, Sorrento
SorrentoCliff-top hotels above the harbour

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Sorrento by Berthold Werner, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Puerto Vallarta or Sorrento?

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

  • nightlife
  • prices
  • beaches

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

Choose Sorrento for

  • day trips
  • getting around
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Sorrento’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, Sorrento 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 25 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, Sorrento 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Sorrento 32: Sorrento leads by 4 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Sorrento 28: Puerto Vallarta leads by 38 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Sorrento 80: Sorrento leads by 4 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, Sorrento 95: Sorrento leads by 40 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, Sorrento 42: Puerto Vallarta leads by 23 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, Sorrento 58: Sorrento leads by 13 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Sorrento 38: Puerto Vallarta leads by 4 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, Sorrento 32: Puerto Vallarta leads by 28 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, Sorrento 20: Puerto Vallarta leads by 12 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, Sorrento 48: Puerto Vallarta leads by 4 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Vallarta and Sorrento.

Your match

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

Puerto Vallarta
Best match
56match

Wins on nightlife and prices with your weighting.

Sorrento
49match

Wins on day trips 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

Sorrento in July

29 °Cdaytime high
24 °Cnight-time low
21 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
25 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaSorrento

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.

Sorrento has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Sorrento's sunshine is measured 54 km from the centre, at Grazzanise.

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. Sorrento: 2005-2025 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Capri (17 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaSorrento
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaItalian
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCFL230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation101 m50 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsNaples International Airport (NAP)30 km from centre131 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days13 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaSorrento
City population224,16615,407
People per km²4,3111,541
Museums within 10 km26
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km15
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months5 months

Where else could you go?

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