VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
The White Tower from the promenade, Thessaloniki
ThessalonikiThe White Tower from the promenade

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Thessaloniki by Destinygreece, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Puerto Vallarta or Thessaloniki?

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
  • wellness
  • families

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

Choose Thessaloniki for

  • culture and sights
  • live music and the arts
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Thessaloniki’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, Thessaloniki 55: Puerto Vallarta leads by 30 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, Thessaloniki 77: Thessaloniki leads by 15 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Thessaloniki 73: Thessaloniki leads by 45 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Thessaloniki 76: Thessaloniki leads by 10 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Thessaloniki 66: Puerto Vallarta leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, Thessaloniki 74: Thessaloniki leads by 19 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, Thessaloniki 50: Puerto Vallarta leads by 15 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, Thessaloniki 60: Thessaloniki leads by 15 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Thessaloniki 50: Thessaloniki leads by 8 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, Thessaloniki 66: Thessaloniki leads by 6 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta 32, Thessaloniki 52: Thessaloniki leads by 20 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, Thessaloniki 33: Puerto Vallarta leads by 19 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Vallarta and Thessaloniki.

Your match

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

Puerto Vallarta
56match

Wins on beaches and wellness with your weighting.

Thessaloniki
Best match
61match

Wins on culture and sights and live music and the arts 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

Thessaloniki in July

32 °Cdaytime high
21 °Cnight-time low
23 mmrain in the month
11 hsunshine a day
26 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaThessaloniki

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. Thessaloniki: 1991-2020 normals, Thessaloniki Airport (14 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaThessaloniki
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaGreek
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Euro (EUR)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCF230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation101 m6 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsThessaloniki Macedonia International Airport (SKG)14 km from centre90 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days15 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaThessaloniki
City population224,166309,617
People per km²4,31116,042
Museums within 10 km232
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km11
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 Thessaloniki 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.