VacationSelector
Playa de los Muertos below the green hills, Puerto Vallarta
Puerto VallartaPlaya de los Muertos below the green hills
The Great Mosque with the mountains behind, Tirana
TiranaThe Great Mosque with the mountains behind

Photos: Puerto Vallarta by RL0919, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Tirana by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Puerto Vallarta or Tirana?

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
  • families
  • wellness

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

Choose Tirana for

  • prices
  • culture and sights
  • day trips

What lies behind each score is written up on Tirana’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, Tirana 46: Puerto Vallarta leads by 39 points.
Food & drink. Puerto Vallarta 62, Tirana 57: Puerto Vallarta leads by 5 points.
Culture & sights. Puerto Vallarta 28, Tirana 42: Tirana leads by 14 points.
Nightlife. Puerto Vallarta 66, Tirana 58: Puerto Vallarta leads by 8 points.
Nature & outdoors. Puerto Vallarta 76, Tirana 62: Puerto Vallarta leads by 14 points.
Day trips. Puerto Vallarta 55, Tirana 64: Tirana leads by 9 points.
Good for families. Puerto Vallarta 65, Tirana 40: Puerto Vallarta leads by 25 points.
Getting around. Puerto Vallarta 45, Tirana 54: Tirana leads by 9 points.
Shopping & style. Puerto Vallarta 42, Tirana 32: Puerto Vallarta leads by 10 points.
Affordability. Puerto Vallarta 60, Tirana 76: Tirana leads by 16 points.
Live music & performing arts. Puerto Vallarta and Tirana are level on 32.
Wellness & relaxation. Puerto Vallarta 52, Tirana 27: Puerto Vallarta leads by 25 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Puerto Vallarta and Tirana.

Your match

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

Puerto Vallarta
Best match
56match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Tirana
49match

Wins on prices 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

Tirana in July

31 °Cdaytime high
17 °Cnight-time low
43 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
24 °Csea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Puerto VallartaTirana

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. Tirana: 1961-1990 normals, Tirana (3 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasurePuerto VallartaTirana
Official languageSpanish, Nahuatl, Yucatec MayaAlbanian
CurrencyMexican Peso (MXN)Lek (ALL)
SocketsAB127 V, 60 HzCF220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC-6UTC+1, UTC+2 in summer
Emergency number911112
Elevation101 m110 m
Main airportPuerto Vallarta International Airport (PVR)5 km from centre52 non-stop destinationsTirana International Airport Mother Teresa (TIA)13 km from centre121 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year9 days14 days

By the numbers

MeasurePuerto VallartaTirana
City population224,166389,323
People per km²4,3119,314
Museums within 10 km211
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km10
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 Tirana 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.