VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
The Opera House from the water, Sydney
SydneyThe Opera House from the water

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Sydney by Bernard Spragg, CC0.

Puerto Vallarta or Sydney?

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

  • prices
  • nightlife
  • day trips

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

Choose Sydney for

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

What lies behind each score is written up on Sydney’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, Sydney 95: Sydney leads by 10 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, Sydney 77: Sydney leads by 15 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Sydney 60: Sydney leads by 32 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Sydney 60: Puerto Vallarta leads by 6 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Sydney 85: Sydney leads by 9 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, Sydney 50: Puerto Vallarta leads by 5 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, Sydney 75: Sydney leads by 10 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, Sydney 75: Sydney leads by 30 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Sydney 68: Sydney leads by 26 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, Sydney 22: Puerto Vallarta leads by 38 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, Sydney 73: Sydney leads by 41 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, Sydney 55: Sydney leads by 3 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Vallarta and Sydney.

Your match

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

Puerto Vallarta
56match

Wins on prices and nightlife with your weighting.

Sydney
Best match
66match

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

Sydney in July

18 °Cdaytime high
9 °Cnight-time low
70 mmrain in the month
7 hsunshine a day
19 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaSydney

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. Sydney: 1991-2020 normals, Sydney Airport (3.7 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaSydney
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaEnglish
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Australian Dollar (AUD)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+10, UTC+11 in summer
Emergency number911000
Elevation101 m6 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsSydney Kingsford Smith International Airport (SYD)9 km from centre99 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days11 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaSydney
City population224,1665,450,496
People per km²4,311449
Museums within 10 km238
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km12
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 months6 months

Where else could you go?

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